CAPTAIN    CRAIG 


A  Book  of  Poems 


BY 


EDWIN  ARLINGTON  ROBINSON 


SECOND    EDITION. 


Boston  and  New  York 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  COMPANY 

The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge 
1903 


COPYRIGHT,   1902,   BY   EDWIN   ARLINGTON    ROBINSON 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  October,  igos 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CAPTAIN    CRAIG I 

ISAAC    AND    ARCHIBALD 85 

THE    RETURN    OF    MORGAN    AND    FINGAL   .        .        .        .103 

AUNT    IMOGEN IO8 

THE    KLONDIKE 115 

THE    GROWTH    OF    "  LORRAINE  " 121 

THE    SAGE 123 

ERASMUS 124 

THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    WIFE 125 

THE    BOOK    OF    ANNANDALE 127 

SAINTE-NITOUCHE 150 

AS    A    WORLD    WOULD    HAVE    IT 159 

THE    CORRIDOR 163 

CORTEGE 164 

THE    WIFE    OF    PALISSY 1 66 

TWILIGHT    SONG 169 


281715 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG 


I  DOUBT  if  ten  men  in  all  Tilbury  Town 
Had  ever  shaken  hands  with  Captain  Craig, 
Or  called  him  by  his  name,  or  looked  at  him 
So  curiously,  or  so  concernedly, 
As  they  had  looked  at  ashes;  but  a  few  — 
Say  five  or  six  of  us  —  had  found  somehow 
The  spark  in  him,  and  we  had  fanned  it  there, 
Choked  under,  like  a  jest  in  Holy  Writ, 
By  Tilbury  prudence.     He  had  lived  his  life, 
And  he  had  shared,  with  all  of  humankind, 
Inveterate  leave  to  fashion  of  himself, 
By  some  resplendent  metamorphosis, 
Whatever  he  was  not.     And  after  time, 
When  it  had  come  sufficiently  to  pass 
That  he  was  going  patch-clad  through  the  streets, 
Weak,   dizzy,  chilled,  and  half  starved,  he  had 

laid 

Some  nerveless  fingers  on  a  prudent  sleeve 
And  told  the  sleeve,  in  furtive  confidence, 


2  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

Just  how  it  was :  u  My  name  is  Captain  Craig," 
He  said,  "  and  I  must  eat."     The  sleeve  moved 

on, 

And  after  it  moved  others  —  one  or  two ; 
For  Captain  Craig,  before  the  day  was  done, 
Got  back  to  the  scant  refuge  of  his  bed 
And  shivered  into  it  without  a  curse  — 
Without  a  murmur  even.     He  was  cold, 
And  old,  and  hungry  ;  but  the  worst  of  it 
Was  a  forlorn  familiar  consciousness 
That  he  had  failed  again.    There  was  a  time 
When  he  had  fancied,  if  worst  came  to  worst, 
And  he  could  work  no  more,  that  he  might  beg 
Nor  be  the  less  for  it ;  but  when  it  came 
To  practice  he  found  out  that  he  had  not 
The  genius.    It  was  that,  and  that  was  all : 
Experience  had  made  him  to  detect 
The  blunder  for  his  own,  like  all  the  rest 
Of  him.    There  were  no  other  men  to  blame. 
He  was  himself,  and  he  had  lost  the  speed 
He  started  with,  and  he  was  left  behind. 
There  was  no  mystery,  no  tragedy ; 
And  if  they  found  him  lying  on  his  back 
Stone  dead  there   some  sharp   morning,  as  they 

might,  — 

Well,  once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  man  — 
Es  war  elnmal  em  Konig,  if  it  pleased  him. 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  3 

And  he  was  right  :  there  were  no  men  to  blame : 
There    was   just    a   false    note    in    the    Tilbury 

tune  — 

A  note  that  able-bodied  men  might  sound 
Hosannas  on  while  Captain  Craig  lay  quiet. 
They  might  have  made  him  sing  by  feeding  him 
Till  he  should  work  again,  but  probably 
Such    yielding    would     have     jeopardized     the 

rhythm  ; 

They  found  it  more  melodious  to  shout 
Right  on,  with  unmolested  adoration, 
To  keep  the  tune  as  it  had  always  been, 
To  trust  in  God,  and  let  the  Captain  starve. 

He  must  have  understood  that  afterwards  — 
When  we  had  laid  some  fuel  to  the  spark 
Of  him,  and  oxidized  it  —  for  he  laughed 
Out  loud  and  long  at  us  to  feel  it  burn, 
And  then,  for  gratitude,  made  game  of  us  : 
u  You  are  the  resurrection  and  the  life," 
He  said,  u  and  I  the  hymn  the  Brahmin  sings ; 
O  Fuscus  !  and  we  '11  go  no  more  a-roving." 

We  were  not  quite  accoutred  for  a  blast 
Of  any  lettered  nonchalance  like  that, 
And  some  of  us —  the  five  or  six  of  us 
Who  found  him  out  —  were  singularly  struck. 


4  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

But  soon  there  came  assurance  of  his  lips, 

Like  phrases  out  of  some  sweet  instrument 

Man's  hand  had  never  fitted,  that  he  felt 

"  No  penitential  shame  for  what  had  come, 

No  virtuous  regret  for  what  had  been, — 

But  rather  a  joy  to  find  it  in  his  life 

To  be  an  outcast  usher  of  the  soul 

For  such  as  had  good  courage  of  the  Sun 

To  pattern  Love."   The  Captain  had  one  chair; 

And  on  the  bottom  of  it,  like  a  king, 

For  longer  time  than  I  dare  chronicle, 

Sat  with  an  ancient  ease  and  eulogized 

His  opportunity.     My  friends  got  out, 

Like  brokers  out  of  Arcady  ;  but  I  — 

May  be  for  fascination  of  the  thing, 

Or  may  be  for  the  larger  humor  of  it  — 

Stayed  listening,  unwearied  and  unstung. 

When  they  were  gone  the  Captain's  tuneful  ooze 

Of  rhetoric  took  on  a  change ;  he  smiled 

At  me  and  then  continued,  earnestly : 

"  Your  friends  have  had  enough  of  it ;  but  you, 

For  a  motive  hardly  vindicated  yet 

By  prudence  or  by  conscience,  have  remained ; 

And  that  is  very  good,  for  I  have  things 

To  tell  you  :   things  that  are  not  words  alone 

Which  are  the  ghosts  of  things  —  but  something 

— 

firmer. 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  5 

"  First,  would  I  have  you  know,  for  every  gift 
Or  sacrifice,  there  are — or  there  may  be  — 
Two  kinds  of  gratitude  :  the  sudden  kind 
We  feel  for  what  we  take,  the  slower  kind 
We    feel    for    what    we    give.     Once    we   have 

learned 

As  much  as  this,  we  know  the  truth  has  been 
Told  over  to  the  world  a  thousand  times ;  — 
But  we  have  had  no  ears  to  listen  yet 
For  more  than  fragments  of  it :  we  have  heard 
A  murmur  now  and  then,  an  echo  here 
And  there,   and  we  have  made  great  music  of 

its 

And  we  have  made  innumerable  books 
To    please   the  Unknown  God.     Time    throws 

away 

Dead  thousands  of  them,  but  the  God  that  knows 
No  death  denies  not  one :  the  books  all  count, 
The  songs  all  count ;  and  yet  God's  music  has 
No  modes,  his  language  has  ncTadjectives." 

"  You  may  be  right,  you  may  be  wrong,"  said  I ; 
"  But  what  has  all  of  this  that  you  say  now  — 
This  nineteenth-century  Nirvana-talk  — 
To  do  with  you  and  me  ?  "    The  Captain  raised 
His  hand  and  held  it  westward,  where  a  patched 
And  unwashed  attic-window  filtered  in 


6  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

What  barren  light  could  reach  us,  and  then  said, 
With  a  suave,  complacent  resonance  :    "  There 

shines 

The  sun.    Behold  it.    We  go  round  and  round, 
And  wisdom  comes  to  us  with  every  whirl 
We  count  throughout  the  circuit.    We  may  say 
The  child  is  born,  the  boy  becomes  a  man, 
The  man  does  this  and  that,  and  the  mangoes, — 
But  having  said  it  we  have  not  said  much, 
Not  very  much.    Do  I  fancy,  or  you  think, 
That  it  will  be  the  end  of  anything 
When  I  am  gone  ?    There  was  a  soldier  once 
Who  fought  one  fight  and  in  that  fight  fell  dead. 
Sad   friends   went  after,  and    they   brought    him 

home 

And  had  a  brass  band  at  his  funeral, 
As  you  should  have  at  mine ;  and  after  that 
A  few  remembered  him.    But  he  was  dead, 
They  said,  and  they  should  have  their  friend  no 

more.  — 

However,  there  was  once  a  starveling  child  — » 
A  ragged-vested  little  incubus, 
Born  to  be  cuffed  and  frighted  out  of  all 
Capacity  for  childhood's  happiness  — 
Who  started  out  one  day,  quite  suddenly, 
To  drown  himself.    He  ran  away  from  home, 
Across  the  clover-fields  and  through  the  woods, 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  7 

And  waited  on  the  rock  above  the  stream, 

Just  like  a  kingfisher.    He  might  have  dived, 

Or  jumped,  or  he  might  not ;  but  anyhow, 

There  came  along  a  man  who  looked  at  him 

With  such  an  unexpected  friendliness, 

And  talked  with  him  in  such  a  common  way, 

That  life  grew  marvelously  different  : 

What  he  had  lately  known  for  sullen  trunks 

And  branches,  and  a  world  of  tedious  leaves, 

Was  all  transmuted ;  a  faint  forest  wind 

That  once  had  made  the  loneliest  of  all 

Sad  sounds  on  earth,  made  now  the  rarest  music ; 

And  the  water  that  had  called  him  once  to  death 

Now  seemed  a  flowing  glory.    And  that  man, 

Born  to  go  down  a  soldier,  did  this  thing.  — 

Not  much  to  do  ?    Not  very  much,  I  grant  you : 

Good  occupation  for  a  sonneteer, 

Or  for  a  clown,  or  for  a  clergyman, 

But  small  work  for  a  soldier.    By  the  way, 

When  you  are  weary  sometimes  of  your  own 

Utility,  I  wonder  if  you  find 

Occasional  great  comfort  pondering 

What  power  a  man  has  in  him  to  put  forth  ? 

*  Of  all  the  many  marvelous  things  that  are, 

Nothing  is  there  more  marvelous  than  man,' 

Said  Sophocles;  and  he  lived  long  ago; 

4  And  earth,  unending  ancient  of  the  gods 


8  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

He  furrows ;  and  the  ploughs  go  back  and  forth, 
Turning  the  broken  mould,  year  after  year.'  .  .  . 

"  I  turned  a  little  furrow  of  my  own 

Once  on  a  time,  and  everybody  laughed  — 

As  I  laughed  afterwards  ;  and  I  doubt  not 

The  First  Intelligence,  which  we  have  drawn 

In  our  competitive  humility 

As  if  it  went  forever  on  two  legs, 

Had  some  diversion  of  it  :  I  believe 

God's  humor  is  the  music  of  the  spheres  — 

But  even  as  we  draft  omnipotence 

Itself  to  our  own  image,  we  pervert 

The  courage  of  an  infinite  ideal 

To  finite  resignation.    You  have  made 

The  cement  of  your  churches  out  of  tears 

And  ashes,  and  the  fabric  will  not  stand  : 

The    shifted  walls    that    you    have    coaxed    and 

shored 

So  long  with  unavailing  compromise 
Will  crumble  down  to  dust  and  blow  away, 
And  younger  dust  will  follow  after  them ; 
Though  not  the  faintest  or  the  farthest  whirled 
First  atom  of  the  least  that  ever  flew 
Shall  be  by  man  defrauded  of  the  touch 
God  thrilled  it  with  to  make  a  dream  for  man 
When  Science  was  unborn.    And  after  time, 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  .9 

When  we  have  earned  our  spiritual  ears, 

And  art's  commiseration  of  the  truth 

No  longer  glorifies  the  singing  beast, 

Or  venerates  the  clinquant  charlatan,  — , 

Then  shall  at  last  come  ringing  through  the  sun, 

Through  time,  through  flesh,  God's  music  of  the 

soul. 

For  wisdom  is  that  music,  and  all  joy 
That  wisdom  :  —  you  may  counterfeit,  you  think, 
The  burden  of  it  in  a  thousand  ways ; 
But  as  the  bitterness  that  loads  your  tears 
Makes  Dead  Sea  swimming  easy,  so  the  gloom, 
The  penance,  and  the  woeful  pride  you  keep, 
Make  bitterness  your  buoyance  of  the  world. 
And  at  the  fairest  and  the  frenziedest 
Alike  of  your  God-fearing  festivals, 
You  so  compound  the  truth  to  pamper  fear 
That  in  the  doubtful  surfeit  of  your  faith 
You  clamor  for  the  food  that  shadows  eat. 
You  call  it  rapture  or  deliverance, — 
Passion  or  exaltation,  or  what  most 
The  moment  needs,  but  your  faint-heartedness 
Lives  in  it  yet :  you  quiver  and  you  clutch 
For  something  larger,  something  unfulfilled, 
Some  wiser  kind  of  jov  that  vou  shall  have 

. J      J  J 

Never,  until  you  learn  to  laugh  with  God." 


io  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

And  with  a  calm  Socratic  patronage, 

At  once~KaIF  sombre  and  half  humorous, 

The  Captain  reverently  twirled  his  thumbs 

And  fixed  his  eyes  on  something  far  away ; 

Then,  with  a  gradual  gaze,  conclusive,  shrewd, 

And  at  the  moment  unendurable 

For  sheer  beneficence,  he  looked  at  me.  - 

"  But  the  brass  band  ?  "  I  said,  not  quite  at  ease 

With  altruism  yet. —  He  made  a  kind 

Of  reminiscent  little  inward  noise, 

Midway  between  a  chuckle  and  a  laugh, 

And  that  was  all  his  answer  :  not  a  word 

Of  explanation  or  suggestion  came 

From  those  tight-smiling  lips.    And  when  I  left, 

I  wondered,  as  I  trod  the  creaking  snow 

And  had  the  world-wide  air  to  breathe  again,  — 

Though  I  had  seen  the  tremor  of  his  mouth 

And  honored  the  endurance  of  his  hand  — 

Whether  or  not,  securely  closeted 

Up  there  in  the  stived  haven  of  his  den, 

The  man  sat  laughing  at  me ;  and  I  felt 

My  teeth  grind  hard  together  with  a  quaint 

Revulsion  —  as  I  think  back  on  it  now  — 

Not  only  for  my  Captain,  but  as  well 

For  every  smug-faced  failure  on  God's  earth  — 

Albeit  I  could  swear,  at  the  same  time, 

That  there  were  tears  in  the  old  fellow's  eyes. 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  n 

I  question  if  in  tremors  or  in  tears 

There  be  more  guidance  to  man's  worthiness 

Than  —  well,  say  in  his  prayers.    But  oftentimes 

It  humors  us  to  think  that  we  possess 

By  some  divine  adjustment  of  our  own 

Particular  shrewd  cells,  or  something  else, 

What  others,  for  untutored  sympathy, 

Go  jpirit-fishing  more  than  half  their  lives 

To  catch  —  like  cheerful  sinners  to  catch  faith ; 

And  I  have  not  a  doubt  but  I  assumed 

Some  egotistic  attribute  like  this 

When,  cautiously,  next  morning  I  reduced 

The  fretful  qualms  of  my  novitiate, 

For  most  part,  to  an  undigested  pride. 

Only,  I  live  convinced  that  I  regret 

This  enterprise  no  more  than  I  regret 

My  life;  and  I  am  glad  that  I  was  born. 

That  evening,  at  "  The  Chrysalis,"  I  found 

The  faces  of  my  comrades  all  suffused 

With  what  I  chose  then  to  denominate 

Superfluous  good  feeling.    In  return, 

They  loaded  me  with  titles  of  odd  form 

And  unexemplified  significance, 

Like  "  Bellows-mender  to  Prince  ./Eolus," 

"  Pipe-filler  to  the  Hoboscholiast," 

"  Bread-fruit  for  the  Non-Doing,"  with  one  more 


12  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

That  I  remember,  and  a  dozen  more 

That  I  forget.    I  may  have  been  disturbed, 

I  do  not  say  that  I  was  not  annoyed, 

But  something  of  the  same  serenity 

That  fortified  me  later  made  me  feel 

For  their  skin-pricking  arrows  not  so  much 

Of  pain  as  of  a  vigorous  defect 

In  this  world's  archery.    I  might  have  tried, 

With  a  flat  facetiousness,  to  demonstrate 

What  they  had  only  snapped  at  and  thereby 

Made  out  of  my  best  evidence  no  more 

Than  comfortable  food  for  their  conceit ; 

But  patient  wisdom  frowned  on  argument, 

With  a  side  nod  for  silence,  and  I  smoked 

A  series  of  incurable  dry  pipes 

While  Morgan  fiddled,  with  obnoxious  care, 

Some  things  that  I  detested.  —  Killigrew, 

Drowsed  with  a  fond  abstraction,  like  an  ass, 

Lay  blinking  at  me  while  he  grinned  and  made 

Remarks.    The  learned  Plunket  made  remarks. 

It  may  have  been  for  smoke  that  I  cursed  cats 

That  night,  but  I  have  rather  to  believe 

As  I  lay  turning,  twisting,  listening, 

And  wondering,  between  great  sleepless  yawns, 

What  possible  satisfaction  those  dead  leaves 

Could  find  in  sending  shadows  to  my  room 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  13 

And  swinging  them  like  black  rags  on  a  line, 

That  I,  with  a  forlorn  clear-headedness 

Was  ekeing  out  probation.    I  had  sinned 

In  fearing  to  believe  what  I  believed, 

And  I  was  paying  for  it.  —  Whimsical,. 

You  think,  —  factitious  ;  but  "  there  is  no  luck, 

No  fate,  no  fortune  for  us,  but  the  old 

Unswerving  and  inviolable  price 

Gets  paid  :   God  sells  himself  eternally, 

But  never  gives  a  crust,"  my  friend  had  said; 

And  while  I  watched  those  leaves,  and  heard  those 

cats, 

And  with  half  mad  minuteness  analyzed 
The  Captain's  attitude  and  then  my  own, 
I  felt  at  length  as  one  who  throws  himself 
Down  restless  on  a  couch  when  clouds  are  dark, 
And  shuts  his  eyes  to  find,  when  he  wakes  up 
And  opens  them  again,  what  seems  at  first 
An  unfamiliar  sunlight  in  his  room 
And  in  his  life — as  if  the  child  in  him 
Had  laughed  and  let  him  see  ;  and  then  I  knew. 
Some  prowling  superfluity  of  child 
In  me  had  found  the  child  in  Captain  Craig 
And  had  the  sunlight  reach  him.   While  I  slept, 
That  thought  reshaped  itself  to  friendly  dreams, 
And  in  the  morning  it  was  with  me  still. 


1 4  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

Through  March  and  shifting  April  to  the  time 
When  winter  first  becomes  a  memory 
My  friend  the  Captain  —  to  my  other  friend's 
Incredulous  regret  that  such  as  he 
Should  ever  get  the  talons  of  his  talk 
So  fixed  in  my  unfledged  credulity  — 
Kept  up  the  peroration  of  his  life, 
Not  yielding  at  a  threshold,  nor,  I  think, 
/Too  often  on  the  stairs.    He  made  me  laugh 
I  Sometimes,  and  then  again  he  made  me  weep 
Almost ;  for  I  had  insufficiency 
Enough  in  me  to  make  me  know  the  truth 
Within  the  jest,  and  I  could  feel  it  there 
As  well  as  if  it  were  the  folded  note 
I  felt  between  my  fingers.     I  had  said 
Before  that  I  should  have  to  go  away 
And  leave  him  for  the  season;  and  his  eyes 
Had  shone  with  well-becoming  interest 
At  that  intelligence.     There  was  no  mist 
In  them  that  I  remember ;  but  I  marked 
An  unmistakable  self-questioning 
And  a  reticence  of  unassumed  regret. 
The  two  together  made  anxiety  — 
Not  selfishness,  I  ventured.     I  should  see 
No  more  of  him  for  six  or  seven  months, 
And  I  was  there  to  tell  him  as  I  might 
What  humorous  provision  we  had  made 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  15 

For  keeping  him  locked  up  in  Tilbury  Town. 

That  finished  —  with  a  few  more  commonplace 

Prosaics  on  the  certified  event 

Of  my  return  to  find  him  young  again  — 

I  left  him  neither  vexed,  I  thought,  with  us, 

Nor  very  much  at  odds  with  destiny. 

At  any  rate,  save  always  for  a  look 

That  I  had  seen  too  often  to  mistake 

Or  to  forget,  he  gave  no  other  sign. 

When  I  was  in  the  street  I  heard  him  shout 
Some  anxious  Latin  down  ;  but  a  slow  load 
Of  trailing  rails  absorbed  it,  and  I  lost 
Whatever  of  good  counsel  or  farewell 
It  may  have  had  for  me.     I  turned  about 
And  having  waved  a  somewhat  indistinct 
Acknowledgment,  I  walked  along.     The  train 
Was  late  and  I  was  early,  but  the  gap 
Was  filled  and  even  crowded.     Killigrew 
Had  left  his  pigeonholes  to  say  good-by, 
And  he  stood  waiting  by  the  ticket  window 
Like   one  grin-cursed  of  Orcus.  —  "You    have 

heard  ? " 
Said  he.  —  "  Heard  what  ?  "  said  I.  —  «  He  !  he  !  " 

said  he ; 

ct  Then  your  gray-headed  beneficiary  — 
Your  paragon  of  abstract  usefulness  — 


1 6  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

Your  philhellenic  proletariat  — 

He  !  he  !  "  —  "  But  what  the  devil  is  it  all 

About  ?  "  said  I.     "  What  has  he  done  ?     What 

ails  him  ?  "  — 
"  What  has  he  done  ?     Ye  gods  !     What  has  he 

done  ? 

Man,  he  's  a  tramp  —  a  Waggles  —  a  dead  beat ! 
I  have  a  friend  who  knew  him  fifteen  years 
Ago,  and  I  have  his  assurance  now 
That  your  sequestered  parasite  achieved 
The  same  discreet  collapse,  at  intervals, 
Then  as  when  first  you  found  him.     And  you  ask 
What  he  has  done  !      Go  find  a  looking-glass 
And  you  may  see  some  recent  work  of  his  — 
The  most  remunerative,  and  I  think 
The  most  unconscious." 

With  another  man 

I  might  have  made  of  that  last  adjective 
A  stimulating  text ;  but  Killigrew 
Was  not  the  one  for  me  to  stimulate 
In  five  defective  minutes,  and  I  knew  it. 
So  I  offer  no  defense  for  keeping  still 
While  he  gave  birth  to  phrases  for  my  sake, 
Nor  more  for  staring  at  the  changeless  curve 
Where  river  and  railroad  vanished,  half  a  mile 
Beyond  us  to  the  north.    I  gave  him  leave 
To  talk  as  long  as  he  had  words  in  him, 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  17 

And  watched  the  track  and  waited  for  the  train  ; 
And  I  remember,  when  the  brakes  had  ceased 
Their  welcome  wheezing  and  the  place  was  rilled 
With  yells  and  shadows  and  official  smash, 
How  he   ground    my  patient    ringers    and    said, 

"  Well, 

Good-by,  old  man  !  —  good-by  !    And  don't  for 
get : 

Patrician,  but  all  Waggles  to  the  grave." 
The  grin  became  a  smile  soon  after  that, 
And  I  knew  that  he  had  let  the  Captain  go  ; 
And  I  could  read,  where  once  the  jest  had  been, 
The  spirit  of  the  friend  who  cared  the  most. 

The  train  began  to  move ;  and  as  it  moved, 

I  felt  a  comfortable  sudden  change 

All  over  and  inside.    Partly  it  seemed 

As  if  the  strings  of  me  had  all  at  once 

Gone  down  a  tone  or  two  ;   and  even  though 

It  made  me  scowl  to  think  so  trivial 

A  touch  had  owned  the  strength  to  tighten  them, 

It  made  me  laugh  to  think  that  I  was  free. 

But  free  from  what  —  when  I  began  to  turn 

The  question    round  —  was  more    than  I  could 

say  : 

I  was  no  longer  vexed  with  Killigrew, 
Nor  more  was  I  possessed  with  Captain  Craig ; 


1 8  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

But  I  was  eased  of  some  restraint,  I  thought, 

Not  qualified  by  those  amenities, 

And  I  should  have  to  search  the  matter  down  -, 

For  I  was  young,  and  I  was  very  keen. 

So  I  began  to  smoke  a  bad  cigar 

That  Plunket,  in  his  love,  had  given  me 

The  night  before ;  and  as  I  smoked  I  watched 

The  flying  mirrors  for  a  mile  or  so, 

Till  to  the  changing  glimpse,  now  sharp,    now 

faint, 

They  gave  me  of  the  woodland  over  west, 
A  gleam  of  long-forgotten  strenuous  years 
Came  back,  when  we  were  Red  Men  on  the  trail, 
With  Morgan  for  the  big  chief  Wocky-Bocky  ; 
But  I  soon  yawned  out  of  that  and  set  myself 
To  face  again  the  loud  monotonous  ride 
That  lay  before  me  like  a  vista  drawn 
Of  bag-racks  to  the  fabled  end  of  things. 

II 

Yet  that  ride  had  an  end,  as  all  rides  have ; 
And  the  days  that  followed  after  took  the  road 
That  all  days  take,  —  though  never  one  of  them 
Went  by  but  I  got  some  good  thought  of  it 
For  Captain  Craig.    Not  that  I  pitied  him, 
Or  nursed  a  mordant  hunger  for  his  presence ; 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  19 

But  what  I  thought  (what  Killigrew  still  thinks) 
An  irremediable  cheerfulness 
Was  in  him  and  about  the  name  of  him, 
And  I  fancy  that  it  may  be  most  of  all 
For  the  jokes  he  made  that  I  have  saved  his  letters. 
I  like  to  think  of  him,  and  how  he  looked  — 
Or  should  have  looked  —  in  his  renewed  estate, 
Composing  them.    They  may  be  dreariness 
/Unspeakable  to  you  that  never  saw 

.    The  Captain ;  but  to  five  or  six  of  us 
Who  knew  him  they  are  not  so  bad  as  that. 
It  may  be  we  have  smiled  not  always  where 
The  text  itself  would  seem  to  indicate 
Responsive  titillation  on  our  part,  — 
Yet  having  smiled  at  all  we  have  done  well, 
For  we  know  that  we  have  touched  the  ghost  of 

him. 
He  tells  me  that  he  thinks  of  nothing  now 

\   That  he  would  rather  do  than  be  himself, 
Wisely  alive.    So  let  us  heed  this  man  :  — 

"  The  world  that  has  been  old  is  young  again, 
The  touch  that  faltered  clings  ;  and  this  is  May. 
So  think  of  your  decrepit  pensioner 
As  one  who  cherishes  the  living  light, 
Forgetful  of  dead  shadows.    He  may  gloat, 
And  he  may  not  have  power  in  his  arms 


20  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

To  make  the  young  world  move  ;  but  he  has  eyes 
And  ears,  and  he  can  read  the  sun.    Therefore 
Think  first  of  him  as  one  who  vegetates 
In  tune  with  all  the  children  who  laugh  best 
And  longest  through  the  sunshine,  though  far  off 
Their  laughter,  and  unheard ;  for  't  is  the  child, 
O  friend,  that  with  his  laugh  redeems  the  man. 
Time  steals  the  infant,  but  the  child  he  leaves  ; 
And  we,  we  fighters  over  of  old  wars  — 
We  men,  we  shearers  of  the  Golden  Fleece  — 
Were  brutes  without  him,  —  brutes  to  tear  the 

scars 

Of  one  another's  wounds  and  weep  in  them, 
And  then  cry  out  on  God  that  he  should  flaunt 
For  life  such  anguish  and  flesh-wretchedness. 
But  let  the  brute  go  roaring  his  own  way : 
We  do  not  need  him,  and  he  loves  us  not. 
Let  music  be  for  us  the  forward  song, 
And  let  us  give  the  good  world  one  more  chance. 

"  I  cannot  think  of  anything  to-day 
That  I  would  rather  do  than  be  myself, 
Primevally  alive,  and  have  the  sun 
Shine  into  me ;  for  on  a  day  like  this, 
When  the  chaff-parts  of  a  man's  adversities 
Are  blown  by  quick  spring  breezes  out  of  him  — 
When  even  a  flicker  of  wind  that  wakes  no  more 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  21 

Than    a  tuft  of  grass,  or  a  few  young  yellow 

leaves, 

Comes  like  the  falling  of  a  prophet's  breath 
On  altar-flames  rekindled  of  crushed  embers,  — 
Then  do  I  feel,  now  do  I  feel,  within  me 
No  dreariness,  no  grief,  no  discontent, 
No  twinge  of  human  envy.     But  I  beg 
That  you  forego  credentials  of  the  past 
For  these  illuminations  of  the  present, 
Or  better  still,  to  give  the  shadow  justice, 
You  let  me  tell  you  something  :  I  have  yearned 
In  many  another  season  for  these  days, 
And  having  them  with  God's  own  pageantry 
To  make  me  glad  for  them,  —  yes,  I  have  cursed 
The  sunlight  and  the  breezes  and  the  leaves 
To  think  of  men  on  stretchers  and  on  beds, 
Or  on  foul  floors,  like  starved  outrageous  lizards, 
Made  human  with  paralysis  and  rags ; 
Or  of  some  poor  devil  on  a  battle-field, 
Left  undiscovered  and  without  the  strength 
To  drag  a  maggot  from  his  clotted  mouth ; 
Or  of  women  working  where  a  man  would  fall  — 
Flat-breasted  miracles  of  cheerfulness 
Made  neuter  by  the  work  that  no  man  counts 
Until  it  waits  undone  ;  children  thrown  out 
To   feed  their  veins  and  souls  with   offal  .  . 

Yes, 


22  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

I  have  had  half  a  mind  to  blow  my  brains  out 
Sometimes ;  and  I  have  gone  from  door  to  door, 
Ragged  myself,  trying  to  do  something  — 
Crazy,  I  hope.  —  But  what  has  this  to  do 
With  Spring  ?    Because  one  half  of  humankind 
Lives  here  in  hell,  shall  not  the  other  half 
Do  any  more  than  just  for  conscience'  sake 
Be  miserable  ?    Is  this  the  way  for  us 
To  lead  these  creatures  up  to  find  the  light, 
Or  the  way  to  be  drawn  down  to  find  the  dark 
Again  ?    What  is  it  ?    What  does  the  child  say  ? 

"  But  let  us  not  make  riot  for  the  child 

Untaught,  nor  let  us  hold  that  we  may  read 

The  sun  but  through  the  shadows  ;  nor,  again, 

Be  we  forgetful  ever  that  we  keep 

The  shadows  on  their  side.     For  evidence, 

I  might  go  back  a  little  to  the  days 

When  I  had  hounds  and  credit,  and  grave  friends 

To   borrow    my   books   and  set  wet   glasses   on 

them, 

And  other  friends  of  all  sorts,  grave  and  gay, 
Of  whom  one  woman  and  one  man  stand  out 
From  all  the  rest,  this  morning.    The  man  said 
One  day,  as  we  were  riding,  c  Now,  you  see, 
;  Therej^oes  a  woman  cursed  with  happiness  : 
Beauty  and  wealth,  health,  horses,  —  everything 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  23 

That  she  could  ask,  or  we  could  ask,  is  hers, 

Except  an  inward  eye  for  the  plain  fact 

Of  what  this  damned  world  is.    The  cleverness 

God  gave  her  — ^"or"  the  devil  —  cautions  her 

That  she  must  keep  the  china  cup  of  life 

Filled  somehow,  and  she  fills  it  —  runs  it  over  — 

Claps  her  white  hands  while  some  one  does  the 

sopping 
With    fingers    made,    she    thinks,    for  just    that 

purpose, 

Giggles  and  eats  and  reads  and  goes  to  church, 
Makes  pretty  little  penitential  prayers, 
And  has  an  eighteen-carat  crucifix 
Wrapped  up  in  chamois-skin.    She  gives  enough, 
You  say;  but  what  is  giving  like  hers  worth  ? 
What  is  a  gift  without  the  soul  to  guide  it  ? 
"  Poor  dears,  and  they  have  cancers  ?  —  Oh  !  " 

she  says  ; 

And  away  she  works  at  that  new  altar-cloth 
For  the  Reverend  Hieronymus  Mackintosh  — 
Third   person,   Jerry.    "Jerry,"  she   says,  "can 

say 

Such  lovely  things,  and  make  life  seem  so  sweet !  " 
Jerry  can  drink,  also.  —  And  there  she  goes, 
Like   a   whirlwind    through    an    orchard    in    the 

springtime  — 
Throwing  herself  away  as  if  she  thought 


24  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

The  world  and  the  whole  planetary  circus 
Were  a  flourish  of  apple-blossoms.    Look  at  her  ! 
Lilies  and  roses  !    Butterflies  !    Great  Scott  ! 
And  here  is  this  infernal  world  of  ours  — 
And  hers,  if  only  she  might  find  it  out  — 
Starving  and  shrieking,  sickening,  suppurating, 
Whirling  to  God  knows  where  .  .  .  But  look  at 

her! 

Confucius,  how  she  rides  !    And  by  Saint  Satan, 
She  's  galloping  over  to  talk  with  us,  woman  and 

horse 
All   ours!    But  look  —  just  look  at  her!  —  By 

Jove ! '  .  .  , 


"  And  after  that  it  came  about  somehow, 
Almost  as  if  the  Fates  were  killing  time, 
That  she,  the  spendthrift  of  a  thousand  joys, 
Rode  in  her  turn  with  me,  and  in  her  turn 
Made  observations  :  '  Now  there  goes  a  man,' 
She  said,  c  who  feeds  his  very  soul  on  poison  : 
No  matter  what  he  does,  or  where  he  looks, 
He  finds  unhappiness  ;  or,  if  he  fails 
To  find  it,  he  creates  it,  and  then  hugs  it : 
Pygmalion  again  for  all  the  world  — 
Pygmalion  gone  wrong.    You  know  I  think 
If  when  that  precious  animal  was  young, 
His  mother,  or  some  watchful  aunt  of  his, 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  25 

Had  spanked  him  with  Pendennis  and  Don  Juan, 

And  given  him  the  Lady  of  the  Lake, 

Or  Cord  and  Creese,  or  almost  anything, 

There  might  have  been  a  tonic  for  him  ?    Listen : 

When  he  was  possibly  nineteen  years  old 

He  came  to  me  and  said,  "  I  understand 

You  are  in  love  "  —  yes,  that  is  what  he  said,  — 

u  But  never  mind,  it  won't  last  very  long ; 

It  never  does ;  we  all  get  over  it. 

We  have  this  clinging  nature,  for  you  see 

The  Great  Bear  shook  himself  once  on  a  time 

And  the  world  is  one  of  many  that  let  go." 

But  I  let  the  creature  live,  and  there  you  see 

him  ; 

And  he  would  have  this  life  no  fairer  thing 
Than  a  certain  time  for  numerous  marionettes 
To  do  the  Dance  of  Death.    Give  him  a  rose, 
And  he  will  tell  you  it  is  very  sweet, 
But  only  for  a  day.    Most  wonderful ! 
Show  him  a  child,  or  anything  that  laughs, 
And   he   begins   at   once    to    crunch   his   worm 
wood 

And  then  runs  on  with  his  u  realities." 
What  does  he  know  about  realities, 
Who  sees  the  truth  of  things  almost  as  well 
As  Nero  saw  the  Northern  Lights  ?    Good  gra 
cious  ! 


26  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

Can't   you   do  something  with   him  ?    Call   him 

something  — 

Call  him  a  type,  and  that  will  make  him  cry : 
One  of  those  not  at  all  unusual, 
Prophetic,  would-be-Delphic  manger-snappers 
That  always  get  replaced  when  they  are  gone  ; 
Or  one  of  those  impenetrable  men, 
Who  seem  to  carry  branded  on  their  foreheads, 
"  We  are  abstruse,  but  not  quite  so  abstruse 
As  we  think  the  Lord  intended  we  should  be;" 
One  of  those  men  who  never  quite  confess 
That    Washington    was    great ;  —  the    kind    of 

man 

That  everybody  knows  and  always  will,  — 
Shrewd,  critical,  facetious,  insincere, 
And  for  the  most  part  harmless,  I  'm  afraid. 
But  even  then,  I  truly  think  you  ought 
To  tell  him  something.'  —  And  I  said  I  would. 

"  So  in  one  afternoon  you  see  we  have 
The  child  in  absence  —  or,  to  say  the  least, 
In  ominous  defect,  —  and  in  excess 
Commensurate,  likewise.    Now  the  question  is, 
Not  which  was  right  and  which  was  wrong,  for 

each, 

By  virtue  of  one-sidedness,  was  both  ; 
But  rather  —  to  my  mind,  as  heretofore  — 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  27 

Is  it  better  to  be  blinded  by  the  lights, 

J  O  ' 

Or  by  the  shadows  ?    By  the  lights,  you  say  ? 

The  shadows  are  all  devils,  and  the  lights 

Gleam  guiding  and  eternal  ?    Very  good  ; 

But  while  you  say  so  do  not  quite  forget 

That  sunshine  has  a  devil  of  its  own, 

And  one  that  we,  for  the  great  craft  of  him, 

But  vaguely  recognize.    The  marvel  is 

That  this  persuasive  and  especial  devil, 

By  grace  of  his  extreme  transparency, 

Precludes  all  common  vision  of  him  ;  yet 

There  is  one  way  to  glimpse  him  and  a  way, 

As  I  believe,  to  test  him,  —  granted  once 

That  we  have  ousted  prejudice,  which  means 

That  we  have  made  magnanimous  advance 

Through  self-acquaintance.    Not  an  easy  thing 

For  some  of  us  ;  impossible,  may  be, 

For  all  of  us  :  the  woman  and  the  man 

I  cited,  for  example,  would  have  wrought 

The  most  intractable  conglomerate 

Of  everything,  if  they  had  set  themselves 

To  analyze  themselves  and  not  each  other ; 

If  only  for  the  sake  of  self-respect, 

They  would  have  come  to  no  place  but  the  same 

Wherefrom  they  started ;  one  would    have  lived 

awhile 
In  paradise  without  defending  it, 


28  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

And  one  in  hell  without  enjoying  it ; 
And  each  had  been  dissuaded  neither  more 
Nor  less  thereafter.     There  are  such  on  earth 
As  might  have  been  composed  primarily 
For  object-lessons :   he  was  one  of  them, 
And  she  —  the  devil  makes  us  hesitate  : 
'T  is  easy  to  read  words  writ  well  with  ink 
That  makes  a  good  black  mark  on  smooth  white 

paper ; 

But  words  are  done  sometimes  with  other  ink 
Whereof  the  smooth  white  paper  gives  no  sign 
Till  science  brings  it  out ;  and  here  we  come 
To  knowledge,  and  the  way  to  test  a  devil. 

"  To  the  greater  number  of  us,  you  contend, 
This  demon  of  the  sunlight  is  a  stranger ; 
But  if  you  break  the  sunlight  of  yourself, 
Project  it,  and  observe  the  quaint  shades  of  it, 
I  have  a  shrewd  suspicion  you  may  find 
That  even  as  a  name  lives  un revealed 
In  ink  that  waits  an  agent,  so  it  is 
The  devil  —  or  this  devil  —  hides  himself 
To  all  the  diagnoses  we  have  made 
Save  one,  —  sincerity.    The  quest  is  hard  — 
As  hard  as  truth ;  but  once  we  seem  to  know 
That  his  compound  obsequiousness  prevails 
Unferreted  within  us,  we  may  find 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  29 

That  sympathy,  which  aureoles  itself 

To  superfluity  from  you  and  me, 

May  stand  against  the  soul  for  five  or  six 

Persistent  and  indubitable  streaks 

Of  irritating  brilliance,  out  of  which 

A  man  may  read,  if  he  have  knowledge  in  him, 

Proportionate  attest  of  ignorance, 

Hypocrisy,  good-heartedness,  conceit, 

Indifference,  —  with  all  of  these  out-hued 

By  the  spiritual  inactivity 

Which  more  than  often  is  identified 

With  individual  intensity, 

And  is  the  parent  of  that  selfishness 

Whereof  no  end  of  lesser  tlons  and  isms 

Are  querulously  born.    But  there  are  things 

To  be  considered  here,  or  your  machine 

May  never  justify  the  purchase  of  it ; 

For  if  you  fail  to  gauge  the  difference 

Between  self-sacrifice  and  self-contempt, 

Your  light  will  be  all  devil  and  your  faith 

Diseased,  —  whatever  courage  you  have  left : 

Courage  is  not  enough  to  make  men  glad 

For  laughter  when  that  laughter  is  itself 

The  tribute  of  recriminating  groans  ; 

Nor  are  the  shapes  of  obsolescent  creeds 

Much  longer  to  flit  near  enough  to  make 

Men  glad  for  living  in  a  world  like  this; 


30  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

But  wisdom,  courage,  knowledge,  and  the  faith 

Which  has  the  soul  and  is  the  soul  of  reason 

These  are  the  world's  achievers.    And  the  child 

The  child  that  is  the  saviour  of  all  ages, 
The  prophet  and  the  poet,  the  crown-bearer, 
Must  yet  with  Love's  unhonored  fortitude, 
Survive  to  cherish  and  attain  for  us 
The  candor  and  the  generosity, 
By  leave  of  which  we  smile  if  we  bring  back 
Some  first  ideal  flash  that  wakened  us 
When  wisdom  like  a  shaft  of  dungeon-light 
Came  searching  down  to  find  us. 

"  Halfway  back 

I  made  a  mild  allusion  to  the  Fates, 
Not  knowing  then  that  ever  I  should  have 
Dream-visions  of  them,  painted  on  the  air,  — 
Clotho,  Lachesis,  Atropos.    Faint-hued 
They  seem,  but  with  a  faintness  never  fading, 
Unblurred  by  gloom,  unshattered  by  the  sun, 
Still  with  eternal  color,  colorless, 
They  move  and  they  remain.    The  while  I  write 
These  very  words  I  see  them,  —  Atropos, 
Lachesis,  Clotho ;  and  the  last  is  laughing : 
When  Clotho  laughs,  Atropos  rattles  her  shears ; 
But  Clotho  keeps  on  laughing  just  the  same. 
Some  time  when  I  have  dreamed  that  Atropos 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  31 

Has    laughed,    I  '11    tell    you    how    the    colors 

change  — 
The  colors  that  are  changeless,  colorless." 


I  fear  I  may  have  answered  Captain  Craig's 
Epistle  Number  One  with  what  he  chose, 
Good-humoredly  but  anxiously,  to  take 
For  something  that  was  not  all  reverence ; 
From  the  tone  of  Number  Two  it  seemed  almost 
As  if  the  flanges  of  the  old  man's  faith 
Had  slipped  the  treacherous  rails  of  my  allegiance 
And  left  him  by  the  roadside,  humorously 
Upset,  with  nothing  more  convivial 
To  do  than  be  facetious  and  austere :  — 

"  If  you  did  not  like  Don  Cesar  de  Bazan 
There  must  be  some  imperfection  in  your  vitals. 
Flamboyant  and  old-fashioned  ?    Overdone  ? 
Romantico-robustious  ?  —  Dear  young  man, 
There  are  fifteen  thousand  ways  to  be  one-sided, 
And  I  have  indicated  two  of  them 
Already.    Now  you  bait  me  with  a  third  — 
As  if  it  were  a  spider  with  nine  legs ; 
But  what  it  is  that  you  would  have  me  do, 
What  fatherly  wrath  you  most  anticipate, 
I  lack  the  needed  impulse  to  discern. 


32  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

If  you  did  not  like  Don   Cesar  de  Bazan, 

However,  there  are  comedies  in  reach 

That  have  the  fashion  always.    For  example  :  — 

"At   the  time  when    there  was  not  enough  of 

laurel 

On  Parnassus  to  feed  quite  the  Boston  market, 
An  admirable  poet  undertook 
With  earnest  fingers  to  graft  asphodels 
And  old  world  cypress-plumes  on  apple-boughs ; 
And  at  the  end  of  his  experiments, 
Like  Johann  Kepler,  he  brought  forth  a  book. 
The  book  was  not  sublime,  but  from  its  hard 
And  uncommutative  perversity 
Of  words  there  came,  like  jewels  out  of  sand, 
Six  measured  songs  too  beautiful  to  die. 
So  I  take  that  self-repudiating  name 
c  Perversity '  and  throw  it  like  a  spleen 
To  the  last  and  farthest  of  Thalia's  kennels  — 
Though  I  who  shape  no  songs  of  any  sort, 
I  who  have  made  no  music,  thrilled  no  canvas,  — 
I  who  have  added  nothing  to  the  world 
The  world   would   reckon  save  long-squandered 

wit  — 

Might  with  half-pardonable  reverence 
Beguile  my  faith,  maybe,  to  the  forlorn 
Extent  of  some  sequestered  murmuring 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  33 

Anent  the  vanities.    No  doubt  I  should, 
If  mine  were  the  one  life  that  I  have  lived ; 
But  with  a  few  good  glimpses  I  have  had 
Of  heaven  through  the  little  holes  in  hell, 
I  do  not  any  longer  feel  myself 
To  be  ordained  or  even  qualified 
For  criticising  God  to  my  advantage. 
If  you  doubt  the  true  humility  of  this, 
You  doubt  the  spectrum  ;  and  if  you  doubt  that, 
You  cannot  understand  what  price  it  was 
The  poet  paid,  at  one  time  and  another, 
For  those  indemnifying  sonnet-songs 
That  are  to  be  the  kernel  in  what  lives 
To  shrine  him  when  the  new-born   men   come 
singing. 

"  Nor  can  you  understand  what  I  have  read 

From  even  the  squeezed  items  of  account 

Which  I  have  to  my  credit  in  that  book 

Whereof  the  leaves  are  ages  and  the  text 

Eternity.    What  do  I  care  to-day 

For  the  pages  that  have  nothing?    LJlSKeJiyed, 

And  I  have  died,  and  I  have  lived  again ; 

And  I  am  very  comfortable.    Yes, 

Though  I  look  back  through  barren  years  enough 

To  make  me  seem  —  as  I  transmute  myself 

In  a  downward  retrospect  from  what  I  am  — 


34  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

As  unproductive  and  as  unconvinced 

Of  the  living  bread  and  the  soul's  eternal  draught 

As  a  frog   on   a   Passover-cake   in  a   streamless 

desert,  — 

Still  do  I  trust  the  light  that  I  have  earned, 
And   having   earned,  received.    You  shake   your 

head, 
But  I  do  not  know  that  you  will  shake  it  off. 

"  Meanwhile  I  have  the  flowers  and  the  grass, 

My  brothers  here  the  trees,  and  all  July 

To  make  me  joyous.    Why  do  you  shake  your 

head  ? 

Why  do  you  laugh  ?  —  because  you  are  so  young  ? 
Do  you  think  if  you  laugh  hard  enough  the  truth 
Will  go  to  sleep  ?    Do  you  think  of  any  couch 
Made  soft  enough  to  put  the  truth  to  sleep  ? 
Do  you  think  there  are  no  proper  comedies 
But  yours  that  have  the  fashion  ?    For  example, 
Do  you  think  that  I  forget,  or  shall  forget, 
One  friendless,  fat,  fantastic  nondescript 
Who  knew  the  ways  of  laughter  on  low  roads,  — 
A  vagabond,  a  drunkard,  and  a  sponge, 
But  always  a  free  creature  with  a  soul  ? 
For  a  compliment  to  your  intelligence 
I  bring  him  back,  though  not  without  misgivings, 
And  I  caution  you  to  damn  him  sparingly. 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  35 

"  Count  Pretzel  von  Wiirzburger,  the  Obscene 
(The  beggar  may  have  had  another  name, 
But  no  man  to  my  knowledge  ever  knew  it) 
Was  a  poet  and  a  skeptic  and  a  critic. 
And  in  his  own  mad  manner  a  musician : 
He  had  found  an  old  piano  in  a  bar-room, 
And  it  was  his  career  —  three  nights  a  week, 
From  ten  o'clock  till  twelve — to  make  it  rattle; 
And  then,  when  I  was  just  far  down  enough 
To    sit   and  watch    him   with   his  long   straight 

hair, 

And  pity  him,  and  think  he  looked  like  Liszt, 
I  might  have  glorified  a  musical 
Steam-engine,  or  a  xylophone.    The  Count 
Played  half  of  everything  and  c  improvised  ' 
The  rest :  he  told  me  once  that  he  was  born 
With  a  genius  in  him  that  '  prohibited 
Complete  fidelity,'  and  that  his  art 
c  Confessed  vagaries,'  therefore.    But  I  made 
Kind  reckoning  of  his  vagaries  then  : 
I  had  the  whole  great  pathos  of  the  man 
To  purify  me,  and  all  sorts  of  music 
To  give  me  spiritual  nourishment 
And  cerebral  athletics ;  for  the  Count 
Played  indiscriminately  —  with  an/J 
And  with  incurable  presto  —  cradle-songs 
And  carnivals,  spring-songs  and  funeral  marches, 


36  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

The  Marseillaise  and  Schubert's  Serenade  — 

And  always  in  a  way  to  make  me  think 

Procrustes  had  the  germ  of  music  in  him. 

And  when  this  interesting  reprobate 

Began  to  talk  —  then  there  were  more  vagaries  : 

He  made  a  reeking  fetich  of  all  filth, 

Apparently ;  but  there  was  yet  revealed 

About  him,  through  his  words  and  on  his  flesh, 

That  ostracizing  nimbus  of  a  soul's 

Abject,  apologetic  purity  — 

That  phosphorescence  of  sincerity  — 

Which  indicates  the  curse  and  the  salvation 

Of  a  life  wherein  starved  art  may  never  perish. 

"  One  evening  I  remember  clearliest 
Of  all  that  I  passed  with  him.    Having  wrought, 
With  his  nerve-ploughing  ingenuity, 
The  Traumerei  into  a  Titan's  nightmare, 
The  man  sat  down  across  the  table  from  me 
And  all  at  once  was  ominously  decent. 
'"The  more  we  measure  what  is  ours  to  use,"3 
He  said  then,  wiping  his  froth-plastered  mouth 
With  the  inside  of  his  hand,  ' "  thelesswe  groan 
For  what  the  gods  refuse."   I  've  hacT  th"at  sleeved 
A  decade  for  you.    Now  but  one  more  stein, 
And  I  shall  be  prevailed  upon  to  read 
The  only  sonnet  I  have  ever  made ; 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  37 

And  after  that,  if  you  propitiate 
Gambrinus,  I  shall  play  you  that  Andante 
As  the  world  has  never  heard  it  played  before.' 
So  saying,  he  produced  a  piece  of  paper, 
Unfolded  it,  and  read,  '  SONNET  UNIQUE 
DE    PRETZEL  VON    WURZBURGER,   DIT   L'Ofi- 
SCENE  :  — 

" c  Carmichael  bad  a  kind  of  joke-disease, 
And  be  bad  queer  tbings  fastened  on  his  wall. 
There  are  three  green  china  frogs  that  I  recall 
More  potently  than  anything,  for  these 
Three  frogs  have  demonstrated,  by  degrees, 
What  curse  was  on  the  man  to  make  him  fall : 
^They  are  not  ordinary  frogs  at  all, 
They  are  the  Frogs  of  Aristophanes" 

u  '  God  !  how  he  laughed  whenever  he  said  that ; 

And  how  we  caught  from  one  another's  eyes 

The  flash  of  what  a  tongue  could  never  tell! 

We  always  laughed  at  him,  no  matter  what 

The  joke  was  worth.    But  when  a  man's  brain  dies, 

We  are  not  always  glad  .   .   .   Poor  Carmichael !  9 

" c  I  am  a  sowbug  and  a  necrophile,' 

Said  Pretzel,  '  and  the  gods  are  growing  old  ; 

The  stars  are  singing  Golden  hair  to  gray, 


3  8  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

Green  leaf  to  yellow  leaf, — or  chlorophyl 

To  xanthophyl,  to  be  more  scientific,  — 

So  speed  me  one  more  stein.    You  may  believe 

That  I  'm  a  mendicant,  but  I  am  not : 

For  though  it  look  to  you  that  I  go  begging, 

The  truth  is  I  go  giving  —  giving  all 

My  strength  and  all  my  personality, 

My  wisdom  and  experience  —  myself, 

To  make  it  final  —  for  your  preservation  ; 

Though  I  be  not  the  one  thing  or  the  other, 

Though  I  strike  between  the  sunset  and  the  dawn, 

Though  I  be  clifF-rubbed  wreckage  on  the  shoals 

Of  Circumstance,  —  doubt  not  that  I  comprise, 

With  all  of  my  disintegrated  zeal, 

Far  more  than  my  appearance.    Here  he  comes ; 

Now  drink   to  good  old  Pretzel  !    Drink   down 

Pretzel  ! 

ghiousque  tandem,  Pretzel,  and  O  Lord, 
How  long !    But  let  regret  go  hang  :    the  good 
Die  first,  and  of  the  poor  did  many  cease 
To  be.    Beethoven  after  Wordsworth.    Prosit  ! 
There  were  geniuses  among  the  trilobites, 
And  I  suspect  that  I  was  one  of  them.' 

u  How  much  of  him  was  earnest  and  how  much 
Fantastic,  I  know  not ;  nor  do  I  need 
Profounder  knowledge  to  exonerate 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  39 

The  squalor  or  the  folly  of  a  man 

Than  a  consciousness — though  even  the  crude 

laugh 

Of  indigent  Priapus  follow  it  — 
That  I  get  good  of  him.    The  poet  made 
Six  golden  sonnets.    Well,  Count  Pretzel  made 
No  golden  sort  of  product  I  remember 
Except  a  shield  of  wisdom  for  the  mind 
Of  Captain  Craig  —  whatever  you  may  think 
Of  him  or  of  his  armor.    If  you  like  him, 
Then  some  time  in  the  future,  past  a  doubt, 
You  will  have  him  in  a  book,  make  metres  of 

him,  — 

To  the  great  delight  of  Mr.  Killigrew, 
And   the  grief  of  all   your   kinsmen.    Christian 

shame 

And  self-confuted  Orientalism 
For  the  more  sagacious  of  them  ;  vulture-tracks 
Of  my  Promethean  bile  for  the  rest  of  them  ; 
And  that  will  be  a  joke.    There  's  nothing  quite 
So  funny  as  a  joke  that 's -lost -o«  earth 
And  laughed  at  by  the  gods.  Your  devil  knows  it. 

"  I  come  to  like  your  Mr.  Killigrew, 
And  I  rejoice  that  you  speak  well  of  him. 
The  sprouts  of  human  blossoming  are  in  him, 
And  useful  eyes  —  if  he  will  open  them ; 


40  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

But  one  thing  ails  the  man.    He  smiles  too  much. 
He  comes  to  see  me  once  or  twice  a  week, 
And  I  must  tell  him  that  he  smiles  too  much. 
If  I  were  Socrates,  how  I  should  do  it  !  " 


Epistle  Number  Three  was  longer  coming. 

I  waited  for  it,  even  worried  for  it  — 

Though  Killigrew,  and  of  his  own  free  will, 

Had  written  reassuring  little  scraps 

From  time  to  time,  and  I  had  valued  them 

The  more  for  being  his.    "  The  Sage,"  he  said, 

u  From  all  that  I  can  see,  is  doing  well  — 

I  should  say  very  well.    Three  meals  a  day, 

Siestas,  and  innumerable  pipes  — 

Not  to  the  tune  of  water  on  the  stones, 

But  rather  to  the  tune  of  his  own  Ego, 

Which  seems  to  be  about  the  same  as  God. 

But  I  was  always  weak  in  metaphysics, 

And  I  pray  therefore  that  you  be  lenient. 

I  'm  going  to  be  married  in  December, 

And  I  have  made  a  poem  that  will  scan  — 

So  Plunket  says.    You  said  the  other  would  n't : 

"Augustus  Plunket,  Ph.  /)., 

And  oh,  the  Bishop's  daughter ; 
A  very  learned  man  was  he 

And  in  twelve  weeks  he  got  her ; 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  41 

And  oh,  she  was  as  fair  to  see 

As  pippins  on  the  pippin  tree  .  .  . 

7#,  tui)  tibi,  te,  —  chubs  in  the  mill  water. 

"  Connotative,  succinct,  and  erudite ; 
Three  dots  to  boot.    Now  goodman  Killigrew 
May  wind  an  epic  one  of  these  glad  years, 
And  after  that  who  knoweth  but  the  Lord  — 
The  Lord  of  Hosts  who  is  the  King  of  Glory  ?  " 

Still,  when  the  Captain's  own  words  were  before 

me, 

I  seemed  to  read  from  them,  or  into  them, 
The  protest  of  a  mortuary  joy 
Not  all  substantiating  Killigrew's 
Off-hand  assurance.    The  man's  face  came  back 
The  while  I  read  them,  and  that  look  again, 
Which  I  had  seen  so  often,  came  back  with  it. 
I  do  not  know  that  I  can  say  just  why, 
But    I    felt    the    feathery    touch    of    something 

wrong :  — 

"  Since  last  I  wrote  —  and  I  fear  the  weeks  have 

gone 
Too  long  for  me  to  leave  my  gratitude 

Unuttered  for  its  own  acknowledgment 

I  have  won,  without  the  magic  of  Amphion 


42  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

Without  the  songs  of  Orpheus  or  Apollo, 
The  frank  regard  —  and  with  it,  if  you  like, 
The     fledged     respect  —  of    three    quick-footed 

friends. 

( '  Nothing  is  there  more  marvelous  than  man/ 
Said  Sophocles ;  and  I  say  after  him  : 
c  He  traps  and  captures,  all-inventive  one, 
The  light  birds  and  the  creatures  of  the  wold, 
And  in  his  nets  the  fishes  of  the  sea.') 
Once  they  were  pictures,  painted  on  the  air, 
Faint  with  eternal  color,  colorless, — 
But  now  they  are  not  pictures,  they  are  fowls. 

"At  first  they  stood  aloof  and  cocked  their  small, 

Smooth,  prudent  heads  at  me  and  made  as  if, 

With  a  cryptic  idiotic  melancholy, 

To  look  authoritative  and  sagacious  ; 

But  when  I  tossed  a  piece  of  apple  to  them, 

They    scattered   back    with    a    discord    of  short 

squawks 

And  then  came  forward  with  a  craftiness 
That  made  me  think  of  Eden.    Atropos 
Came  first,  and  having  grabbed  the  morsel  up, 
Ran  flapping  far  away  and  out  of  sight, 
With  Clotho  and  Lachesis  hard  after  her; 
But  finally  the  three  fared  all  alike, 
And  the  next  day  I  persuaded  them  with  corn. 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  43 

In  a  week  they  came  and  had  it  from  my  fingers 
And  looked  up  at  me  while  I  pinched  their  bills 
And  made  them  sneeze.    Count  Pretzel's  Carmi- 

chael 

Had  said  they  were  not  ordinary  Birds 
At  all,  —  and  they  are  not :  they  are  the  Fates, 
Foredoomed  of  their  own  insufficiency 
To  be  assimilated.  —  Do  not  think, 
Because  in  my  contented  isolation 
It  suits  me  at  this  time  to  be  jocose, 
That  I  am  nailing  reason  to  the  cross, 
Or  that  I  set  the  bauble  and  the  bells 
Above  the  crucible  ;  for  I  do  nought, 
Say  nought,  but  with  an  ancient  levity 
That  is  the  forbear  of  all  earnestness. 

u  The  cross,  I  said.  —  I  had  a  dream  last  night : 

A  dream  not  like  to  any  other  dream 

That  I  remember.    I  was  all  alone, 

Sitting  as  I  do  now  beneath  a  tree, 

But  looking  not,  as  I  am  looking  now, 

Against  the  sunlight.    There  was  neither  sun 

Nor  moon,  nor  do  I  think  of  any  stars  ; 

Yet  there  was  light,  and  there  were  cedar  trees, 

And  there  were  sycamores.    I  lay  at  rest, 

Or  should  have  seemed  at  rest,  within  a  trough 

Between  two  giant  roots.    A  weariness 


44  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

Was  on  me,  and  I  would  have  gone  to  sleep,  — 

But  I  had  not  the  courage.    If  I  slept, 

I  feared  that  I  should  never  wake  again  ; 

And  if  I  did  not  sleep  I  should  go  mad, 

And  with  my  own  dull  tools,  which  I  had  used 

With  wretched  skill  so  long,  hack  out  my  life. 

And  while  I  lay  there,  tortured  out  of  death, 

Great  waves  of  cold,  as  if  the  dead  were  breathing, 

Came  over  me  and  through  me;  and  I  felt 

Quick  fearful  tears  of  anguish  on  my  face 

And  in  my  throat.    But  soon,  and  in  the  distance, 

Concealed,  importunate,  there  was  a  sound 

Of  coming  steps,  —  and  I  was  not  afraid  j 

No,  I  was  not  afraid  then,  I  was  glad ; 

For  I  could  feel,  with  every  thought,  the  Man, 

The  Mystery,  the  Child,  a  footfall  nearer. 

Then,  when  he  stood  before  me,  there  was  no 

Surprise^  there  was  no  questioning  :  I  knew  him, 

As  I  had  known  him  always ;  and  he  smiled. 

<•  Why  are  you  here  ? '  he   asked ;  and  reaching 

down, 

He  took  up  my  dull  blades  and  rubbed  his  thumb 
Across  the  edges  of  them  and  then  smiled 
Once  more.  — CI  was  a  carpenter,'  I  said, 
c  But  there  was  nothing  in  the  world  to  do.' 
1  Nothing  ? '  said  he.  —  'No,  nothing,'  I  replied. — 
'  But  are  you  sure,'  he  asked, c  that  you  have  skill  ? 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  45 

And  are  you  sure  that  you  have  learned  your  trade  ? 
No,  you  are  not/  --  He  looked  at  me  and  laughed 
As  he  said  that ;  but  I  did  not  laugh  then, 
Although  I    might    have    laughed.  —  *  They  are 

dull,'  said  he; 

« They  were  not  very  sharp  if  they  were  ground  ; 
But  they  are  what  you  have,  and  they  will  earn 
What  you  have  not.    So  take  them  as  they  are, 
Grind  them  and  clean  them,  put  new  handles  to 

them, 

And  then  go  learn  your  trade  in  Nazareth. 
Only  be  sure  that  you  find  Nazareth.'  — 
*  But  if   I  starve  —  what  then  ? '   said    I.  —  He 

smiled. 

"  Now  I  call  that  as  curious  a  dream 

As  ever  Meleager's  mother  had,  — 

jEneas,  Alcibiades,  or  Jacob. 

I  '11  not  except  the  scientist  who  dreamed 

That  he  was  Adam  and  that  he  was  Eve 

At  the  same  time ;  or  yet  that  other  man 

Who  dreamed  that  he  was  ./Eschylus,  reborn 

To  clutch,  combine,  compensate,  and  adjust 

The  plunging  and  unfathomable  chorus 

Wherein  we    catch,  like    a  bacchanale   through 

thunder, 
The  chanting  of  the  new  Eumenides, 


46  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

Implacable,  renascent,  farcical, 
Triumphant,  and  American.    He  did  it, 

^..—        i        •»•*••" «•*—">  •" tf> 11  !,«•••  i  •    i "i  •••  '*"• 

But  he  did  it  in  a  dream.    When  he  awoke 
One  phrase  of  it  remained  ;  one  verse  of  it 
Went  singing  through  the  remnant  of  his  life 
Like  a  bag-pipe  through  a  mad-house.  —  He  died 

young, 

And  the  more  I  ponder  the  small  history 
That  I  have  gleaned  of  him  by  scattered  roads, 
The  more  do  I  rejoice  that  he  died  young. 
That  measure  would  have  chased  him  all  his  days, 
Defeated  him,  deposed  him,  wasted  him, 
And  shrewdly  ruined  him  —  though  in  that  ruin 
There  would  have  lived,  as  always  it  has  lived, 
In  ruin  as  in  failure,  the  supreme 
Fulfillment  unexpressed,  the  rhythm  of  God 
That   beats  unheard  through  songs  of  shattered 

men 

Who  dream  but  cannot  sound  it.  —  He  declined, 
From  all  that  I  have  ever  learned  of  him, 
With  absolute  good-humor.    No  complaint, 
No  groaning  at  the  burden  which  is  light, 
No  brain-waste  of  impatience  —  '  Never  mind/ 
He  whispered,  c  for  I  might  have  written  Odes/ 

"  Speaking  of  odes  now  makes  me  think  of  ballads. 
Your  admirable  Mr.  Killigrew 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  47 

Has  latterly  committed  what  he  calls 

A  Ballad  of    London  —  London    '  Town,'     of 

course  — 

And  he  has  wished  that  I  pass  judgment  on  it. 
He  says  there  is  a  '  generosity  ' 
About  it,  and  a  c  sympathetic  insight ; ' 
And  there  are  strong  lines  in  it,  so  he  says. 
But  who  am  I  that  he  should  make  of  me 
A  judge  ?     You    are  his   friend,  and  you  know 

best 

The  measure  of  his  jingle.    I  am  old, 
And  you  are  young.     Be  sure,  I  may  go  back 
To  squeak  for  you  the  tunes  of  yesterday 
On  my  old  fiddle  —  or  what 's  left  of  it  — 
And  give  you  as  I  'm  able  a  young  sound ; 
But  all  the  while  I  do  it  I  remain 
One  of  Apollo's  pensioners  (and  yours), 
An  usher  in  the  Palace  of  the  Sun, 
A  candidate  for  mattocks  and  trombones 
(The  brass-band  will  be  indispensable), 
Ajratrnn  of  ftigfr  MffljpcCjJbut  ^  -critic. 
So  I  shall  have  to  tell  him,  I  suppose, 
That  I  read  nothing  now  but  Wordsworth,  Pope, 
Lucretius,    Robert  Burns,    and  William    Shake 
speare. 
Now  this  is  Mr.  Killigrew's  performance  : 


48  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

" c  Say,  do  you  go  to  London  Town, 

You  with  the  golden  feather  ?  '  — 
c  And  if  I  go  to  London  'Town 

With  my  golden  feather  ?  '  — 
4  These  autumn  roads  are  bright  and  brown, 
The  season  wears  a  russet  crown  ; 
And  if  you  go  to  London  Town, 
We '//  go  down  together.  ' 

"  I  cannot  say  for  certain,  but  I  think 

The  brown  bright  nightingale  was  half  assuaged 

Before  your  Mr.  Killigrew  was  born. 

If  I  have  erred  in  my  chronology, 

No  matter,  —  for  the  feathered  man  sings  now : 

"  <  Tes,  I  go  to  London  Town  ' 

(Merrily  waved  the  feather), 
'  And  if  you  go  to  London  Town, 

Tes,  we  'II  go  together. ' 
So  in  the  autumn  bright  and  brown. 
Just  as  the  year  began  to  frown, 
All  the  way  to  London  Town 
Rode  the  two  together. 

u  c  I  go  to  marry  a  fair  maid ' 

(Lightly  swung  the  feather)  — 
c  Par  die,  a  true  and  loyal  maid ' 
(Oh,  the  swinging  feather  f)  — 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  49 

c  For  us  the  wedding  gold  is  weighed, 
For  us  the  feast  will  soon  be  laid ; 
We  'II  make  a  gallant  show,'  he  said,  — 
*  She  and  I  together' 

"  The  feathered  man  will  do  a  thousand  things 
And  the  world  go  smiling ;  but  the  feathered  man 
May  do    too    much.    Now  mark   how  he    con 
tinues  : 

u  '  And  you  — you  go  to  London  Town  ? ' 

(Breezes  waved  the  feather) —          _, 
'  Yes,  I  go  to  London  Town.9 

(Ah,  the  stinging  feather  /)  — 
c  Why  do  you  go,  my  merry  blade  ? 

Like  me,  to  marry  a  fair  maid?  '  — 
*  Why  do  I  go?  .  .   .    God  knows,'  he  said; 
And  on  they  rode  together. 

"  Now  you  have  read  it  through,  and  you  know 

best 

What  worth  it  has.    We_Jellowj^^^ 
Who  march  with  sticks  to  music  that  is  gray 
Judge  not  your  vanguard  fifing.    You  are  one 
To  judge  ;  and  you  will  tell  me  what  you  think  :  — 
Barring  the  Town,  the  Fair  Maid,  and  the  Feather, 
The  dialogue  and  those  parentheses, 


50  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

You  cherish  it,  undoubtedly.    Pardee  ! 
You  call  it,  with  a  few  conservative 
Allowances,  an  excellent  small  thing 
For  patient  inexperience  to  do  : 
Derivative,  you  say,  —  still  rather  pretty. 
But  what  is  wrong  with  Mr.  Killigrew  ? 

Is  he  in  love,  or  has  he  read  Rossetti  ? 

Forgive  me  !    I  am  old  and  doddering  .   .   . 
When  are  you  coming  back  to  Tilbury  Town  ?  " 

I  could  forgive  the  Captain  soon  enough, 

But  Killigrew  —  there  was  a  question  there; 

Nor  was  it  answered-when  the  next  week  brought 

A  letter  from  him.   After  rocketing 

For  six  or  seven  pages  about  love, 

Truth,  purity,  the  passion  of  the  soul, 

And  other  salutary  attributes, 

Discovered  or  miraculously  born 

Within  six  months,  he  said  :  "  The  Patriarch 

Is  not  quite  as  he  should  be.    There 's  a  clutch 

Of  something  on  him  that  will  not  let  go  ; 

And  there  are  days  together  when  his  eyes 

Are  like  two  lamps  in  ashes.    The  gray  look, 

Which  we  thought  once  the  glory  and  the  crown 

Of  your  too  flexible  determinist, 

Has  gone  all  over  him.    And  when  he  laughs, 

He  waits  as  if  to  hear  the  angels  weep : 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  51 

It  seems  to  make  him  sorry  when  he  laughs, 

And  I  know  what  it  does  to  me.    But  here 

As  at  the  station  —  I  remember  that  — 

The  quantitative  bias  of  the  boy 

May  slant  me  too  much  to  the  other  side 

And    make     me    blind    again.      By    Jove !     old 

man, 

If  you  could  really  know  her  as  I  do 
'T  would  be  the  revelation  of  your  life  : 
You  would    see   that    there  are  women    in    the 

world 
Who  are  altogether  different,"  etc. 

There  was  more  generosity  in  "  women  " 

I  thought  than  in  the  man  without  the  feather.  — 

Meanwhile  I  saw  that  Captain  Craig  was  dying. 

Ill 

I  found  the  old  man  sitting  in  his  bed, 

Propped  up  and  uncomplaining.    On  a  chair 

Beside  him  was  a  dreary  bowl  of  broth, 

A  magazine,  some  glasses,  and  a  pipe. 

"  I  do  not  light  it  nowadays,"  he  said, 

"  But  keep  it  for  an  antique  influence 

That  it  exerts,  an  aura  that  it  sheds  — 

Like  hautboys,  or  Provence.    You  understand  : 


52  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

The  charred  memorial  defeats  us  yet, 

But  think  you  not  for  always.      We  are  young, 

And  we   are  friends  of  time.    Time   that  made 

smoke 

Will  drive  away  the  smoke,  and  we  shall  know 
The  work  that  we  are  doing.    We  shall  build 
With  embers  of  all  shrines  one  pyramid, 
And  we  shall  have  the  most  resplendent  flame 
From  earth  to  heaven,  as  the  old  words  go, 
And  we  shall  need  no  smoke  .  .  .  Why  don't 

you  laugh  ?  " 

I  gazed  into  those  calm,  half-lighted  eyes 

And  smiled  at  them  with  grim  obedience. 

He  told  me  that  I  did  it  very  well, 

But  added  that  I  should  undoubtedly 

Do  better  in  the  future  :  "  There  is  nothing," 

He  said,  "  so  beneficial  in  a  sick-room 

As  a  well-bred  spontaneity  of  manner. 

Your  sympathetic  scowl  obtrudes  itself, 

And  is  indeed  surprising.     After  death, 

Were  you  to  take  it  with  you  to  your  coffin 

An  unimaginative  man  might  think 

That  you  had  lost  your  life  in  worrying 

To  find  out  what  it  was  that  worried  you. 

The  ways  of  unimaginative  men 

Are  singularly  fierce  .  .  .  Why  do  you  stand  ? 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  53 

Sit  here  and  watch  me  while  I  take  this  soup. 
The  doctor  likes  it,  therefore  it  is  good. 

"  The  man  who  wrote  the  decalogue,"  pursued 
The  Captain,  having  swallowed  four  or  five 
Heroic  spoonfuls  of  his  lukewarm  broth, 
"  Forgot  the  doctors.    And  I  think  sometimes 
The  man  of  Galilee  (or,  if  you  choose, 
The  men  who  made  the  sayings  of  the  man) 
Like  Buddha,  and  the  others  who  have  seen, 
Was  to  men's  loss  the  Poet  — though  it  be 
The  Poet  only  of  him  we  revere, 
The  Poet  we  remember.    We  have  put 
The  prose  of  him  so  far  away  from  us, 
The  fear  of  him  so  crudely  over  us, 
That    I    have    wondered — wondered."  —  Cau 
tiously, 

But  yet  as  one  were  cautious  in  a  dream, 
He  set  the  bowl  down  on  the  chair  again, 
Crossed  his  thin  fingers,  looked  me  in  the  face, 
And  looking  smiled  a  little.    "  Go  away," 
He  said  at  last,  "  and  let  me  go  to  sleep. 
I  told  you  I  should  eat,  but  I  shall  not. 
To-morrow  I  shall  eat ;  and  I  shall  read 
Some  clauses  of  a  jocund  instrument 
That  I  have  been  preparing  here  of  late 
For  you  and  for  the  rest,  assuredly. 


54  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

*  Attend  the  testament  of  Captain  Craig  : 
Good  citizens,  good  fathers  and  your  sons, 
Good  mothers  and  your  daughters.'    I  should  say 


so. 


Now  go  away  and  let  me  go  to  sleep." 

I  stood  before  him  and  held  out  my  hand, 
He  took  it,  pressed  it ;  and  I  felt  again 
The  sick  soft  closing  on  it.    He  would  not 
Let  go,  but  lay  there,  looking  up  to  me 
With  eyes  that  had  a  sheen  of  water  on  them 
And  a  faint  wet  spark  within  them.    So  he  clung, 
Tenaciously,  with  fingers  icy  warm, 
And  eyes  too  full  to  keep  the  sheen  unbroken. 
I  looked  at  him.    The  fingers  closed  hard  once, 
And  then  fell  down. —  I  should  have  left  him 
then. 

But  when  we  found  him  the  next  afternoon, 
My  first  thought  was  that  he  had  made  his  eyes 
Miraculously  smaller.    They  were  sharp 
And  hard  and  dry,  and  the  spark  in  them  was 

dry. 

For  a  glance  it  all  but  seemed  as  if  the  man 
Had  artfully  forsworn  the  brimming  gaze 
Of  yesterday,  and  with  a  wizard  strength 
Inveigled  in,  reduced,  and  vitalized 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  55 

The  straw-shine  of  October ;  and  had  that 
Been   truth,  we  should   have   humored  him   not 

less, 

Albeit  he  had  fooled  us,  —  for  he  said 
That  we  had  made  him  glad  by  coming  to  him. 
And  he  was  glad  :  the  manner  of  his  words 
Revealed  the  source  of  them ;  and  the  gray  smile 
Which  lingered  like  a  twilight  on  his  face 
Told  of  its  own  slow  fading  that  it  held 
The  promise  of  the  sun.    Cadaverous, 
God  knows  it  was ;  and  we  knew  it  was  honest. 

"  So  you  have  come  to  have  the  old  man  read 
To  you  from  his  last  will  and  testament  : 
Well,  it  will  not  be  long  —  not  very  long  — 
So  listen."    He  brought  out  from  underneath 
His  pillow  a  new  manuscript,  and  said, 
u  You  are  doing  well  to  come  and  have  me  read 
My  testament.    There  are  men  in  the  world 
Who  say  of  me,  if  they  remember  me, 
That  I  am  poor ;  —  and  I  believe  the  ways 
Of  certain  men  who  never  find  things  out 
Are  stranger  than  the  way  Lord  Bacon  wrote 
Leviticus,  and  Faust"    He  fixed  his  eyes 
Abstractedly  on  something  far  from  us, 
And  with  a  look  that  I  remembered  well 
Gazed  hard  the  while  we  waited.    But  at  length 


56  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

He  found  himself  and  soon  began  to  chant, 
With  a  fitful  shift  at  thin  sonorousness 
The  jocund  instrument ;  and  had  he  been 
Definitively  parceling  to  us 
All  Kimberly  and  half  of  Ballarat, 
The  lordly  quaver  of  his  poor  old  words 
Could  not  have  been  the  more  magniloquent. 
No  promise  of  dead  carbon  or  of  gold, 
However,  flashed  in  ambush  to  corrupt  us  : 

/<c  I,  Captain  Craig,  abhorred  iconoclast, 
Sage-errant,  favored  of  the  Cosmic  Joke, 
And  self-reputed  humorist  at  large, 
Do  now,  confessed  of  my  world-worshiping, 
Time-questioning,  sun-fearing,  and  heart-yielding, 
Approve  and  unreservedly  devise 
To  yon  aqfl  your  assigns  for  evermore, 
God's  universe  and  yours.    If  I  had  won 
What  first  I  sought,  I  might  have  made  you  beam 
By  giving  less  ;  but  now  I  make  you  laugh 
By  giving  more  than  what  had  made  you  beam, 
And  it  is  well.    No  man  has  ever  done 
The  deed  of  humor  that  God  promises, 
But  now  and  then  we  know  tragedians 
;>   Reform,  and  in  denial  too  divine 

Nf  or  sacrifice,  too  firm  for  ecstasy, 
Record  in  jolly  letters  or  in  books 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  57 

What    fragment    of   God's    laughter   they    have 

caught, 

What  earnest  of  its  rhythm ;  and  I  believe 
That  I,  in  having  somewhat  recognized 
The  formal  measure  of  it,  have  endured 
The  discord  of  infirmity  not  less 
Through  fortune  than  by  failure.  What  men  lose, 
Man  gains ;  and  what  man  gains  reports  itself 
In  losses  we  but  vaguely  deprecate, 
So  they  be  not  for  us ;  —  and  this  is  right, 
Except  that  when  the  devil  in  the  sun 
Misguides  us  we  go  darkly  where  the  shine 
Misleads  us,  and  we  know  not  what  we  see : 
We  know  not  if  we  climb  or  if  we  fall ; 
And  if  we  fly,  we  know  not  where  we  fly. 

"  And  here  do  I  insert  an  urging  clause 
For  climbers  and  up-fliers  of  all  sorts, 
ClifF-climbers  and  high-fliers  :  Phaethon, 
Bellerophon,  and  Icarus  did  each 
Go  gloriously  up,  and  each  in  turn 
Did  famously  come  down  —  as  you  have  read 
In  poems  and  elsewhere;  but  other  men 
Have  mounted  where  no  fame  has  followed  them, 
And  we  have  had  no  sight,  no  news  of  them, 
And  we  have  heard  no  crash.    The  crash  may 
count, 


58  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

Undoubtedly,  and  earth  be  fairer  for  it  j 
Yet  none  save  creatures  out  of  harmony 
Have  ever,  in  their  fealty  to  the  flesh, 
Made  crashing  an  ideal.    It  is  the  flesh 
X  That  ails  us,  for  the  spirit  knows  no  qualm, 
No  failure,  no  down-falling :  so  climb  high, 
And  having  set  your  steps  regard  not  much 
The  downward  laughter  clinging  at  your  feet, 
Nor  overmuch  the  warning ;  only  know, 
As  well  as  you  know  dawn  from  lantern-light, 
That  far  above  you,  for  you,  and  within  you, 
There  burns  and  shines  and  lives,  unwavering 
And  always  yours,  the  truth.    Take  on  yourself 
But  your  sincerity,  and  you  take  on 
Good  promise  for  all  climbing :  fly  for  truth, 
And  hell  shall  have  no  storm  to  crush  your  flight, 
No  laughter  to  vex  down  your  loyalty. 

"  I  think  you  may  be  smiling  at  me  now  — 
And  if  I  make  you  smile,  so  much  the  better ; 
For  I  would  have  you  know  that  I  rejoice 
Always  to  see  the  thing  that  I  would  see  — 
The  righteous  thing,  the  wise  thing.    I  rejoice 
Always  to  think  that  any  thought  of  mine, 
Or  any  word  or  any  deed  of  mine, 
May  grant  sufficient  of  what  fortifies 
Good  feeling  and  the  courage  of  calm  joy 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  59 

To  make  the  joke  worth  while.    Contrariwise, 

When  I  review  some  faces  I  have  known  — 

Sad  faces,  hungry  faces  —  and  reflect 

On  thoughts  I  might  have  moulded,  human  words 

I  might  have  said,  straightway  it  saddens  me 

To  feel  perforce  that  had  I  not  been  mute 

And  actionless,  I  might  have  made  them  bright 

Somehow,  though  only  for  the  moment.    Yes, 

Howbeit  I  confess  the  vanities, 

It  saddens  me ;  —  and  sadness,  of  all  things 

Miscounted  wisdom,  and  the  most  of  all 

When  warmed  with  old  illusions  and  regrets, 

I  mark  the  selfishest,  and  on  like  lines 

The    shrewdest.     For  your   sadness    makes  you 

climb 
With    dragging    footsteps,    and    it    makes    you 

groan ; 

It  hinders  you  when  most  you  would  be  free, 
And  there  are  many  days  it  wearies  you 
Beyond  the  toil  itself.    And  if  the  load 
It  lays  on  you  may  not  be  shaken  off 
Till  you    have   known   what    now   you   do   not 

know  -r- 
Meanwhile  you  climb ;  and  he  climbs  best  who 

sees 

Above  him  truth  burn  faithfulest,  and  feels 
Within  him  truth  burn  purest.    Climb  or  fall, 


60  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

One  road  remains  and  one  firm  guidance  always; 
One  way  that  shall  be  taken,  climb  or  fall. 

"  But  *  falling,   falling,   falling.'     There  's  your 

song, 

The  cradle-song  that  sings  you  to  the  grave. 
What  is  it  your  bewildered  poet  says  ?  — 

"  l  The  toiling  ocean  thunders  of  unrest 

And  aching  desolation  ;  the  still  sea 

Paints  but  an  outward  calm  that  mocks  itself 

To  the  final  and  irrefragable  sleep 

That  owns  no  shifting  fury  ;  and  the  shoals 

Of  ages  are  but  records  of  regret 

Where  Time,  the  sun's  arch-phantom,  writes  on  sand 

The  prelude  of  his  ancient  nothingness.9 

"  'T  is  easy  to  compound  a  dirge  like  that, 

And  it  is  easy  too  to  be  deceived 

And  alienated  by  the  fleshless  note 

Of  half-world  yearning  in  it ;  but  the  truth 

To  which  we  all  are  tending,  —  charlatans 

And  architects  alike,  artificers 

In  tinsel  as  in  gold,  evangelists 

Of  ruin  and  redemption,  all  alike,  — 

The  truth  we  seek  and  equally  the  truth 

We  do  not  seek,  but  yet  may  not  escape, 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  61 

Was  never  found  alone  through  flesh  contempt 
Or   through    flesh    reverence.      Look    east    and 

west 

And  we  may  read  the  story  :  where  the  light 
Shone  first  the   shade  now  darkens;  where  the 

shade 
Clung  first,  the  light  fights  westward  —  though 

the  shade 
Still  feeds,  and  there  is  yet  the  Orient. 

"  But  there  is  this  to  be  remembered  always  : 
Whatever  be  the  altitude  you  reach, 
You  do  not  rise  alone ;  nor  do  you  fall 
But  you  drag  others  down  to  more  or  less 
Than  your  preferred  abasement.    God  forbid 
That  ever  I  should  preach,  and  in  my  zeal 
Forget  that  I  was  born  an  humorist ; 
But  now,  for  once,  before  I  go  away, 
I  beg  of  you  to  be  magnanimous 
A  moment,  while  I  speak  to  please  myself — 
The  moment    now   for  flowers;   and   your  pa 
tience  : 

"  Though  I  have  heard  it  variously  sung 
That  even  in  the  fury  and  the  clash 
Of  battles,  and  the  closer  fights  of  men 
When  silence  gives  the  knowing  world  no  sign, 


62  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

One  flower  there  is,  though  crushed  and  cursed 

it  be, 

Keeps  rooted  through  all  tumult  and  all  scorn, — 
Still  do  I  find,  when  I  look  sharply  down, 
There  's  yet  another  flower  that  grows  well 
Arid  has  the  most  unconscionable  roots 
Of  any  weed  on  earth.    Perennial 
It  grows,  and  has  the  name  of  Selfishness ; 
No  doubt  you  call  it  Love.    In  either  case, 
Tou  propagate  it  with  a  diligence 
That  hardly  were  outmeasured  had  its  leaf 
The  very  juice  in  it  of  that  famed  herb 
Which  gave  back  breath  to  Glaucus  ;  and  I  know 
That  in  the  twilight,  after  the  day's  work, 
You  take  your  little  children  in  your  arms, 
Or  lead  them  by  their  credulous  frail  hands 
Benignly  out  and  through  the  garden-gate 
And  show  them  there  the  things  that  you  have 

raised ; 

Not  everything,  perchance,  but  always  one 
Miraculously  rooted  flower  plot 
Which  is  your  pride,  their  pattern.    Socrates, 
Could  he  be  with  you  there  at  such  a  time, 
Would  have  some  unsolicited  shrewd  words 
To  say  that  you  might  hearken  to  ;  but  I 
Say  nothing,  for  I  am  not  Socrates.  — 
So  much, good  friends,  for  flowers;  and  I  thank  you. 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  63 

u  There  was  a  poet  once  who  would  have  roared 

Away  the  world  and  had  an  end  of  stars. 

Where  was  he  when  I  quoted  him  ?  —  oh,  yes : 

'T  is  easy  for  a  man  to  link  loud  words 

With  woeful  pomp  and  unschooled  emphasis 

And  add  one  thundered  contribution  more 

To  the  dirges  of  all-hollowness,  I  said  ; 

But  here  again  I  find  the  question  set 

Before  me,  after  turning  books  on  books 

And  looking  soulward  through  man  after  man, 

If  there  indeed  be  more  determining 

Play-service  in  remotely  sounding  down 

The  world's  one-sidedness.    If  I  judge  right, 

Your  pounding  protestations,  echoing 

Their  burden  of  unfraught  futility, 

Surge  back  to  mute  forgetfulness  at  last 

And  have  a  kind  of  sunny,  sullen  end, 

Like  any  cold  north  storm.  —  But  there  are  few 

Still  seas  that  have  no  life  to  profit  them, 

And  even  in  such  currents  of  the  mind 

As  have  no  tide-rush  to  them,  but  are  drowsed, 

Crude  thoughts  may  dart  in  armor  and  upspring 

With  a  waking  sound,  when  all  is  dim  with  peace, 

Like  sturgeons  in  the  twilight  out  of  Lethe ; 

And  though  they  be  discordant,  hard,  grotesque, 

And  all  unwelcome  to  the  lethargy 

That  you  think  means  repose,  you  know  as  well 


64  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

As  if  your  names  were  shouted  when  they  leap, 
And  when  they  leap  you  listen.  —  Ah  !  friends, 

friends, 

There  are  these  things  we  do  not  like  to  know  : 
They  trouble  us,  they  make  us  hesitate, 
They  touch  us,  and  we  try  to  put  them  off. 
We  banish  one  another  and  then  say 
That  we  are  left  alone :  the  midnight  leaf 
That  rattles  when  it  hangs  above  the  snow  — 
Gaunt,  fluttering,  forlorn  —  scarcely  may  seem 
So  cold  in  all  its  palsied  loneliness 
As  we,  we  frozen  brothers,  who  have  yet 
Profoundly  and  severely  to  find  out 
That  there  is  more  of  unpermitted  love 
In  most  men's  reticence  than  most  men  think. 

"  Once,  when  I  made  it  out  fond-headedness 

To  say  that  we  should  ever  be  apprised 

Of  our  deserts  and  their  emolument 

At  all  but  in  the  specious  way  of  words, 

The  wisdom  of  a  warm  thought  woke  within  me 

And  I  could  read  the  sun.    Then  did  I  turn 

My  long-defeated  face  full  to  the  world, 

And  through  the  clouded  warfare  of  it  all 

Discern  the  light.    Through  dusk  that  hindered 

it, 
I  found  the  truth,  and  for  the  first  whole  time 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  65 

Knew  then  that  we  were  climbing.    Not  as  one 

Who  mounts  along  with  his  experience 

Bound  on  him  like  an  Old  Man  of  the  Sea  — 

Not  as  a  moral  pedant  who  drags  chains 

Of  his  unearned  ideals  after  him 

And  always  to  the  lead-like  thud  they  make 

Attunes  a  cold  inhospitable  chant 

Of  All  Things  Easy  to  the  Non-Attached, — 

But  as  a  man,  a  scarred  man  among  men, 

I  knew  it,  and  I  felt  the  strings  of  thought 

Between  us  to  pull  tight  the  while  I  strove ; 

And  if  a  curse  came  ringing  now  and  then 

To  my  defended  ears,  how  could  I  know 

The   light   that   burned    above    me    and    within 

me, 

And  at  the  same  time  put  on  cap-and-bells 
For  such  as  yet  were  groping  ?  " 

Killigrew 

Made  there  as  if  to  stifle  a  small  cough. 
I  might  have  kicked  him,  but  regret  forbade 
The  subtle  admonition ;  and  indeed 
When  afterwards  I  reprimanded  him, 
The  fellow  never  knew  quite  what  I  meant. 
I  may  have  been  unjust.  — The  Captain  read 
Right  on,  without  a  chuckle  or  a  pause, 
As  if  he  had  heard  nothing : 


66  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

"  How,  forsooth, 

Shall  any  man,  by  curses  or  by  groans, 
Or  by  the  laugh-jarred  stillness  of  all  hell, 
Be  so  drawn  down  to  servitude  again 
That  on  some  backward  level  of  lost  laws 
And  undivined  relations,  he  may  know 
No  longer  Love's  imperative  resource, 
Firm  once  and  his,  well  treasured  then,  but  now 
Too  fondly  thrown  away  ?    And  if  there  come 
But  once  on  all  his  journey,  singing  down 
To  find  him,  the  gold-throated  forward  call, 
What  way  but  one,  what  but  the  forward  way, 
Shall  after  that  call  guide  him  ?    When  his  ears 
Have  earned  an  inward  skill  to  methodize 
The  clash  of  all  crossed  voices  and  all  noises, 
How  shall  he  grope  to  be  confused  again, 
As  he  has  been,  by  discord  ?    When  his  eyes 
Have  read  the  book  of  wisdom  in  the  sun, 
And  after  dark  deciphered  it  on  earth, 
How  shall  he  turn  them  back  to  scan  some  huge 
Blood-lettered  protest  of  bewildered  men 
That  hunger  while  he  feeds  where  they  should 

starve 
And  all  absurdly  perish  ? " 

Killigrew 
Looked  hard  for  a  subtile  object  on  the  wall, 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  67 

And,    having    found    it,    sighed.    The    Captain 

paused : 

If  he  grew  tedious,  most  assuredly 
Did  he  crave  pardon  of  us ;  he  had  feared 
Beforehand  that  he  might  be  wearisome, 
But  there  was  not  much  more  of  it,  he  said,  — 
No  more  than  just  enough.    And  we  rejoiced 
That  he  should  look  so  kindly  on  us  then. 
(u  Commend  me  to  a  dying  man's  grimace 
For  absolute  humor,  always,"  Killigrew 
Maintains  ;  but  I  know  better.) 

"  Work  for  them, 

You  tell  me  ?    Work  the  folly  out  of  them  ? 
Go  back  to  them  and  teach  them  how  to  climb, 
While  you  teach  caterpillars  how  to  fly  ? 
You  tell  me  that  Alnaschar  is  a  fool 
Because  he  dreams  ?    And  what  is  this  you  ask  ? 
I  make  him  wise  ?   I  teach  him  to  be  still  ? 
While  you  go  polishing  the  Pyramids, 
I  hold  Alnaschar's  feet  ?    And  while  you  have 
The  ghost  of  Memnon's  image  all  day  singing, 
I  sit  with  aching  arms  and  hardly  catch 
A  few  spilled  echoes  of  the  song  of  songs  — 
The  song  that  I  should  have  as  utterly 
For  mine  as  any  other  man  should  have, 
The  sweetest  a  glad  shepherd  ever  trilled 


68  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

In  Sharon,  long  ago  ?   Is  this  the  way 
For  me  to  do  good  climbing  any  more 
Than  Phaethon's  ?   Do  you  think  the  golden  tone 
Of  that  far-singing  call  you  all  have  heard 
Means  any  more  for  you  than  you  should  be 
Wise-heartedly,  glad-heartedly  yourselves  ? 
Do  this,  there  is  no  more  for  you  to  do  ; 
And  you  have  no  dread  left,  no  shame,  no  scorn. 
And  while  you  have  your  wisdom  and  your  gold, 
Songs  calling,  and  the  Princess  in  your  arms, 
Remember,  if  you  like,  from  time  to  time, 
Down  yonder  where  the  clouded  millions  go, 
Your  bloody-knuckled  scullions  are  not  slaves, 
Your  children  of  Alnaschar  are  not  fools. 

"  Nor  are  they  quite  so  foreign  or  far  down 
As  you  may  think  to  see  them.    What  you  take 
To  be  the  cursedest  mean  thing  that  crawls 
On  earth  is  nearer  to  you  than  you  know : 
You  may  not  ever  crush  him  but  you  lose, 
You  may  not  ever  shield  him  but  you  gain  — 
As  he,  with  all  his  crookedness,  gains  with  you. 
Your  preaching  and  your  teaching,  your  achiev- 

ing> 

Your  lifting  up  and  your  discovering, 
Are    more    than    often  —  more    than    you    have 

dreamed  — 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  69 

The  world-refracted  evidence  of  what 

Your  dream  denies.    You  cannot  hide  yourselves 

In  any  multitude  or  solitude, 

Or  mask  yourselves  in  any  studied  guise 

Of  hardness  or  of  old  humility, 

But  soon  by  some  discriminating  man  — 

Some  humorist  at  large,  like  Socrates  — 

You  get  yourselves  found  out.  —  Now  I  should 

be 

Found  out  without  an  effort.    For  example: 
When  I  go  riding,  trimmed  and  shaved  again, 
Consistent,  adequate,  respectable, — 
Some  citizen,  for  curiosity, 
Will  ask  of  a  good  neighbor,  <  What  is  this  ? ' 

*  It  is  the  funeral  of  Captain  Craig,' 

Will  be  the  neighbor's  word.  —  '  And  who,  good 

man, 

Was  Captain  Craig  ? '  —  '  He_was_an  humorist ; 
And  we  are.lQlcljJiatjJi£££^isu nothing  more 
F^SLl^JM  alive  to  say  of  him.'  — 

*  There  is  nothing  very  strange  in  that,'  says  A ; 
'  But  the  brass  band  ?      What  has  he  done  to  be 
Blown  through  like  this  by  cornets  and  trombones  ? 

And  here  you  have  this  incompatible  dirge 

Where  are  the  jokes  in  that  ?  '  —  Then  B  should 

say: 
fc  Maintained  his  humor :  nothing  more  or  less. 


7o  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

The  story  goes  that  on  the  day  before 

He  died  —  some  say  a  week,  but  that 's  a  trifle  — 

He  said,  with  a  subdued  facetiousness, 

"  Play  Handel,  not  Chopin ;   assuredly  not 

Chopin."  '  —  He  was  indeed  an  humorist." 

He  made  the  paper  fall  down  at  arm's  length  ; 
And  with  a  tension  of  half-quizzical 
Benignity  that  made  it  hard  for  us, 
He  looked  up  —  first  at  Morgan,  then  at  me  - 
Almost,  I  thought,  as  if  his  eyes  would  ask 
If  we  were  satisfied  ;  and  as  he  looked, 
The  tremor  of  an  old  heart's  weariness 
Was  on  his  mouth.    He  gazed  at  each  of  us, 
But  spoke  no  further  word  that  afternoon. 
He  put  away  the  paper,  closed  his  eyes, 
And  went  to  sleep  with  his  lips  flickering ; 
And  after  that  we  left  him.  —  At  midnight 
Plunket  and  I  looked  in  ;  but  he  still  slept, 
And  everything  was  going  as  it  should. 
The  watchman  yawned,  rattled  his  newspaper, 
And  wondered  what  it  was  that  ailed  his  lamp. 
He  said  it  wheezed.    He  feared  it  might  explode. 

Next  day  we  found  the  Captain  wide  awake, 
Propped  up,  and  searching  dimly  with  a  spoon 
Through  another  dreary  dish  of  chicken-broth, 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  71 

Which  he  raised  up  to  me,  at  my  approach, 

So  fervently  and  so  unconsciously, 

That  one  could  only  laugh.    He  looked  again 

At  each  of  us,  and  as  he  looked  he  frowned ; 

And  there  was  something  in  that  frown  of  his 

That  none  of  us  had  ever  seen  before. 

"  Kind  friends,"  he  said,  "  be  sure  that  I  rejoice 

To  know  that  you  have  come  to  visit  me ; 

Be  sure  I  speak  with  undisguised  words 

And  earnest,  when  I  say  that  I  rejoice." 

"  But  what  the  devil  !  "  whispered  Killigrew. 

I  kicked  him,  for  I  thought  I  understood. 

The  old  man's  eyes  had  glimmered  wearily 
At  first,  but  now  they  glittered  like  to  those 
Of  a  glad  fish.     "  Beyond  a  doubt,"  said  he, 
"  My  dream  this  morning  was  more  singular 
Than  any  other  I  have  ever  known. 
Give  me  that  I  might  live  ten  thousand  years, 
And  all  those  years  do  nothing  but  have  dreams, 
I  doubt  me  much  if  any  one  of  them 
Could  be  so  quaint  or  so  fantastical, 
So  pregnant,  as  a  dream  of  mine  this  morning. 
You  may  not  think  it  any  more  than  odd  ; 
You  may  not  feel  —  you  cannot  wholly  feel  — 
How   droll    it   was :  —  I   dreamed  that   I    found 
Hamlet  — 


72  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

Found    him   at   work,   drenched   with  an    angry 

sweat, 

Predestined,  he  declared  with  emphasis, 
To  root  out  a  large  weed  on  Lethe  wharf; 
And  after  I  had  watched  him  for  some  time, 
I  laughed  at  him  and  told  him  that  no  root 
Would  ever  come  the  while  he  talked  like  that : 
The  power  was  not  in  him,  I  explained, 
For  such  compound  accomplishment.    He  glared 
At  me,  of  course,  — next  moment  laughed  at  me, 
And  finally  laughed  with  me.    I  was  right, 
And  we  had  eisel  on  the  strength  of  it :  — 
'They  tell  me  that  this  water  is  not  good,' 
Said    Hamlet,   and    you    should    have  seen    him 

smile. 
Conceited  ?    Pelion  on  Ossa  ?  —  pah  !   .  .  . 

tt  But  anon  comes  in  a  crocodile.    We  stepped 

Adroitly  down  upon  the  back  of  him, 

And  away  we  went  to  an  undiscovered  country  — 

A  fertile  place,  but  in  more  ways  than  one 

So  like  the  region  we  had  started  from, 

That  Hamlet  straightway  found  another  weed 

And  there  began  to  tug.    I  laughed  again, 

Till  he  cried  out  on  me  and  on  my  mirth, 

Protesting  all  he  knew  :  '  The  Fates,'  he  said, 

«  Have  ordered  it  that  I  shall  have  these  roots.' 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  73 

But  all  at  once  a  dreadful  hunger  seized  him, 
And  it  was  then  we  killed  the  crocodile  — 
Killed    him    and    ate    him.    Washed    with    eisel 

down 

That  luckless  reptile  was,  to  the  last  morsel ; 
And  there  we  were  with  flag-fens  all  around  us,  — 
And  there  was  Hamlet,  at  his  task  again, 
Ridiculous.    And  while  I  watched  him  work, 
The  drollest  of  all  changes  came  to  pass  :  — 
The  weed  had  snapped  off  just  above  the  root, 
Not  warning  him,  and  I  was  left  alone. 
The  bubbles  rose,  and  I  laughed  heartily 
To  think  of  him  ;  I  laughed  when  I  woke  up  ; 
And  when  my  soup  came  in  I  laughed  again ; 
I  think  I  may  have  laughed  a  little  —  no  ?  — 
Not  when  you  came  ?   .   .  .  Why   do  you   look 

like  that  ? 

You  don't  believe  me  ?    Crocodiles  —  why  not  ? 
Who  knows  what  he  has  eaten  in  his  life  ? 
Who  knows  but  I  have  eaten  Atropos  ?   .  .   . 
4  Briar  and  oak  for  a  soldier's  crown,'  you  say  ? 
Provence?    Oh,  no  ...   Had  I  been  Socrates, 
Count    Pretzel   would    have  been   the  King   of 

Spain." 

Now  of  all  casual  things  we  might  have  said 
To  make  the  matter  smooth  at  such  a  time, 


74  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

There  may  have  been  a  few  that  we  had  found 
Sufficient.    Recollection  fails,  however, 
To  say  that  we  said  anything.    We  looked. 
Had  he  been  Carmichael,  we  might  have  stood 
Like  faithful  hypocrites  and  laughed  at  him  j 
But  the  Captain  was  not  Carmichael  at  all, 
For  the  Captain  had  no  frogs  :  he  had  the  sun. 
So  there  we  waited,  hungry  for  the  word,— 
Tormented,  unsophisticated,  stretched  — 
Till,  with  a  drawl,  to  save  us,  Killigrew 
Good-humoredly  spoke  out.    The  Captain  fixed 
His  eyes  on  him  with  some  severity. 

"  That  was  a  funny  dream,  beyond  a  doubt," 
Said  Killigrew  ;  —  "  too  funny  to  be  laughed  at ; 
Too  humorous,  we  mean."  —  "Too  humorous  ? " 
The  Captain  answered  ;  "  I  approve  of  that. 
Proceed."  —  We  were  not  glad  for  Killigrew. 

"  Well,"  he  went  on,  "  't  was  only  this.    You  see 
My  dream  this  morning  was  a  droll  one  too: 
I  dreamed  that  a  sad  man  was  in  my  room, 
Sitting,  as  I  do  now,  beside  the  bed. 
I  questioned  him,  but  he  made  no  reply,  — 
Said  not  a  word,  but  sang."    —  "  Said  not  a  word, 
But  sang,"  the  Captain  echoed.    "  Very  good. 
Now  tell  me  what  it  was  the  sad  man  sang." 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  75 

"  Now  that,"  said  Killigrew,  constrainedly, 
And  with  a  laugh  that  might  have  been  left  out, 
"  Is  why  I  know  it  must  have  been  a  dream. 
But  there  he  was,  and  I  lay  in  the  bed 
Like  you  ;  and  I  could  see  him  just  as  well 
As  you  see  my  right  hand.    And  for  the  songs 
He  sang  to  me — there 's  where  the  dream  part 


"  You  don't  remember  them  ?  "  the  Captain  said, 
With  a  weary  little  chuckle ;  "  very  well, 
I  might  have  guessed  it.    Never  mind  your  dream, 
But  let  me  go  to  sleep."   —  For  a  moment  then 
There  was  half  a  frown  on  Killigrew's  good  face, 
But  he  turned  it  to  a  smile.  —  "  Not  quite,"  said 

he; 

u  The  songs  that  he  sang  first  were  sorrowful, 
And  they  were  stranger  than  the  man  himself  — 
And  he  was  very  strange;  but  I  found  out, 
Through  all  the  gloom  of  him  and  of  his  music, 
That  a  kind  of — well,  say  mystic  cheerfulness, 
Or  give  it  almost  any  trumped-up  name, 
Pervaded  him  ;  for  slowly,  as  he  sang, 
There  came  a  change,  and  I  began  to  know 
The  method  of  it  all.    Song  after  song 
Was  ended  ;  and  when  I  had  listened  there 
For  hours  —  I  mean  for  dream-hours  —  hearing 

him, 


76  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

And  always  glad  that  I  was  hearing  him, 

There    came    another    change  —  a   great    one. 

Tears 

Rolled  out  at  last  like  bullets  from  his  eyes, 
And  I  could  hear  them  fall  down  on  the  floor 
Like  shoes  ;  and  they  were  always  marking  time 
For  the  song  that  he  was  singing.    I  have  lost 
The  greater  number  of  his  verses  now, 
But  there  are  some,  like  these,  that  I  remember*. 

"  '  Ten  men  from  Zanzibar, 
Black  as  iron  hammers  are, 
Riding  on  a  cable-car 
Down  to  Crow  ley's  theatre*  .   .   . 

"  Ten  men  ?  "    the  Captain  interrupted  there  — 

"  Ten  men,  my  Euthyphron  ?    That  is  beautiful. 

But  never  mind,  I  wish  to  go  to  sleep : 

Tell  Cebes  that  I  wish  to  go  to  sleep.  .   .  . 

O  ye  of  little  faith,  your  golden  plumes 

Are  like  to  drag  .  .   .  par-dee  !  "  —  We  may  have 

smiled 

In  after  days  to  think  how  Killigrew 
Had  sacrificed  himself  to  fight  that  silence, 
But  we  were  grateful  to  him,  none  the  less  ; 
And  if  we  smiled,  that  may  have  been  the  rea 
son. 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  77 

But  the  good  Captain  for  a  long  time  then 

Said  nothing  :   he  lay  quiet  —  fast  asleep, 

For  all  that  we  could  see.    We  waited  there 

Till  each  of  us,  I  fancy,  must  have  made 

The  paper  on  the  wall  begin  to  squirm, 

And  then  got  up  to  leave.    My  friends  went  out, 

And  I  was  going,  when  the  old  man  cried : 

u  You  leave  me  now  —  now  it  has  come  to  this  ? 

What  have  I  done  to  make  you  go  ?    Come  back  ! 

Come  back  !  " 

There  was  a  quaver  in  his  cry 
That  we  shall  not  forget  —  reproachful,  kind, 
Indignant,  piteous.    It  seemed  as  one 
Marooned  on  treacherous  tide-feeding  sand 
Were  darkly  calling  over  the  still  straits 
Between  him  and  irrevocable  shores 
Where  now  there  was  no  lamp  to  fade  for  him, 
No  call  to  give  him  answer.    We  were  there 
Before  him,  but  his  eyes  were  not  much  turned 
On  us ;  nor  was  it  very  much  to  us 
That  he  began  to  speak  the  broken  words, 
The  scattered  words,  that  he  had  left  in  him. 

"  So  it  has  come  to  this  ?    And  what  is  this  ? 
Death,  do  you    call    it  ?    Death  ?    And  what  is 
death  ? 


7  8  CAPTAIN   CRAIG 

Why  do  you  look  like  that  at  me  again  ? 

Why  do  you  shrink  your  brows  and  shut  your 

lips  ? 

If  it  be  fear,  then  I  can  do  no  more 
Than  hope  for  all  of  you  that  you  may  find 
Your  promise  of  the  sun  j  if  it  be  grief 
You  feel,  to  think  that  this  old  face  of  mine 
May  never  look  at  you  and  laugh  again, 
Then  tell  me  why  it  is  that  you  have  gone 
So  long  with  me,  and  followed  me  so  far, 
And  had  me  to  believe  you  took  my  words 
For  more  than  ever  misers  did  their  gold  ?  " 

He  listened,  but  his  eyes  were  far  from  us  — 

Too  far  to  make  us  turn  to  Killigrew, 

Or  search  the  futile  shelves  of  our  own  thoughts 

For  golden-labeled  insincerities 

To  make  placebos  of.    The  marrowy  sense 

Of  a  slow  November  storm  that  splashed  against 

The  shingles  and  the  glass  reminded  us 

That  we  had  brought  umbrellas.    He  continued  : 

"  Oh,  can  it  be  that  I,  too  credulous, 
Have  made  myself  believe  that  you  believe 
Yourselves  to  be  the  men  that  you  are  not  ? 
I  prove  and  I  prize  well  your  friendliness, 
But  I  would  have  that  your  last  look  at  me 


CAPTAIN    CRAIG  79 

Be  not  like  this  ;  for  I  would  scan  to-day 
Strong  thoughts  on  all  your  faces  —  no  regret, 
No  fine  commiseration  —  oh,  not  that, 
Not  that  !    Nor  say  of  me,  when  I  am  gone, 
That  I  was  cold  and  harsh,  for  I  was  warm 
To  strangeness,  and  for  you  .   .   .  Say  not  like 

that 

Of  me  —  nor  think  of  me  that  I  reproached 
The  friends  of  my  tight  battles  and  hard  years, 
But  say  that  I  did  love  them  to  the  last 
And  in  my  love  reproved  them  for  the  grief 
They  did  not  —  for  they  dared  not  —  throw  away. 
Courage,  my  boys,  —  courage,  is  what  you  need  : 
Courage  that  is  not  all  flesh-recklessness, 
But  earnest  of  the  world  and  of  the  soul  — 
First  of  the  soul  ;   for  a  man  may  be  as  brave 
As  Ajax  in  the  fury  of  his  arms, 
And  in  the  midmost  warfare  of  his  thoughts 
Be  frail  as  Paris  .   .  .  For  the  love,  therefore, 
That  brothered  us  when  we  stood  back  that  day 
From  Delium  —  the  love  that  holds  us  now 
More  than  it  held  us  at  Amphipolis  — 
Forget  you  not  that  he  who  in  his  work 
Would  mount  from  these  low  roads  of  measured 

shame 

To  tread  the  leagueless  highway  must  fling  first 
And  fling  forevermore  beyond  his  reach 


8o  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

The  shackles  of  a  slave  who  doubts  the  sun. 

There  is  no  servitude  so  fraudulent 

As  of  a  sun-shut  mind  ;  for  't  is  the  mind 

That  makes  you  craven  or  invincible, 

Diseased  or  puissant.     The  mind  will  pay 

Ten  thousand  fold  and  be  the  richer  then 

To  grant  new  service  ;  but  the  world  pays  hard 

And  accurately  sickens  till  in  years 

The  dole  has  eked  its  end  and  there  is  left 

What  all  of  you  are  noting  on  all  days 

In  these  Athenian  streets,  where  squandered  men 

Drag  ruins  of  half- warriors  to  the  grave  — 

Or  to  Hippocrates." 

His  head  fell  back, 

And  he  lay  still  with  wearied  eyes  half-closed. 
We  waited,  but  a  few  faint  words  yet  stayed  : 
"  Kind  friends,"  he  said,  "  friends  I  have  known 

so  long, 

Though  I  have  jested  with  you  in  time  past, 
Though  I  have  stung  your  pride  with  epithets 
Not  all  forbearing,  —  still,  when  I  am  gone, 
Say  Socrates  wrought  always  for  the  best 
And  for  the  wisest  end  .  .   .   Give  me  the  cup  ! 
The  truth  is  yours,  God's  universe  is  yours  .  .  . 
Good-by  .  .  .  good    citizens  .  .  .  give  me  the 

cup"  .  .  . 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  81 

Again  we  waited  ;  and  this  time  we  knew 
Those  lips  of  his  that  would  not  flicker  down 
Had  yet  some  fettered  message  for  us  there. 
We  waited,  and  we  watched  him.     All  at  once, 
With  a  faint  flash,  the  clouded  eyes  grew  clear ; 
And  then  we  knew  the  man  was  coming  back, 
And  we  knew  that  he  would  speak  in  the  old 

way. 
We  watched    him,   and    I    listened.     The    man 

smiled 

And  looked  about  him  —  not  regretfully, 
Not  anxiously ;  and  when  at  last  he  spoke, 
Before  the  long  drowse  came  to  give  him  peace, 
One  word  was  all  he  said.     "  Trombones,"  he 

said. 


That  evening,  at  "  The  Chrysalis  "  again, 
We  smoked  and  looked  at  one  another's  eyes, 
And   we  were   glad.     The  world  had  scattered 

ways 

For  us  to  take,  we  knew ;  but  for  the  time 
That  one  snug  room  where  the  big  beech  logs 

roared  smooth 

Defiance  to  the  cold  rough  rain  outside 
Sufficed.     There  were  no  scattered  ways  for  us 
That  we  could  see  just  then,  and  we  were  glad : 


82  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

We  were  glad  to  be  on  earth,  and  we  rejoiced 
No  less  for  Captain  Craig  that  he  was  gone. 
We  might,  for  his  dead  benefit,  have  run 
The  gamut  of  all  human  weaknesses 
And  uttered  after-platitudes  enough  — 
Wrecked  on  his  own  abstractions,  and  all  such  — 
To  drive  away  Gambrinus  and  the  bead 
From  Bernard's  ale ;  and  I  suppose  we  might 
Have  praised,  accordingly,  the  Lord  of  Hosts 
For  making  us  to  see  that  we  were  not 
(Like  certain  unapproved  inferiors 
Whom  we  had  known,  and  having  known  might 

name) 

Abominable  flotsam.     But  the  best 
And  wisest  occupation,  we  had  learned, — 
At  work,  at  home,  or  at  "  The  Chrysalis," 
Companioned  or  unfriended,  winged  or  chained,  — 
Was  always  to  perpetuate  the  bead. 

So  Plunket,  who  had  knowledge  of  all  sorts, 
Yet  hardly  ever  spoke,  began  to  plink 
O  ta,  Palermo  !  —  quaintly,  with  his  nails,  — 
On  Morgan's  fiddle,  and  at  once  got  seized, 
As  if  he  were  some  small  thing,  by  the  neck. 
Then  the  consummate  Morgan,  having  told 
Explicitly  what  hardship  might  accrue 
To  Plunket  if  he  did  that  any  more, 


CAPTAIN   CRAIG  83 

Made  roaring  chords  and  acrobatic  runs  — 
To  charge  his  fingers  and  the  strings,  he  said, — 
And  then,  with  his  kind  eyes  on  Killigrew, 
Struck  up  the  schoolgirls'  march  in  Lohengrin, 
So  Killigrew  might  smile  and  stretch  himself 
And   have   to    light   his  pipe.     When   that  was 

done 

We  knew  that  Morgan,  by  the  looks  of  him, 
Was  in  the  mood  for  almost  anything 
From  Bach  to  Offenbach  ;  —  and  of  all  times 
That  he  has  ever  played,  that  one  somehow  — 
That  evening  of  the  day  the  Captain  died  — 
Stands  out  like  one  great  verse  of  a  good  song, 
One  strain  that  sings  itself  beyond  the  rest 
For  the  magic  and  a  glamour  that  it  has. 

The  ways  have  scattered  for  us,  and  all  things 
Have  changed;    and  we  have  wisdom,  I   doubt 

not, 

More  fit  for  the  world's  work  than  we  had  then  ; 
But  neither  parted  roads  nor  cent  per  cent 
May  starve  quite  out  the  child  that  lives  in  us  — 
The  Child  that  is  the  Man,  the  Mystery, 
The  Phoenix  of  the  World.     So,  now  and  then, 
That  evening  of  the  day  the  Captain  died 
Returns  to  us  ;  and  there  comes  always  with  it 
The  storm,  the  warm  restraint,  the  fellowship, 


84  CAPTAIN    CRAIG 

The  friendship  and  the  firelight,  and  the  fiddle. 
So  too  there  comes  a  day  that  followed  it  — 
A  windy,  dreary  day  with  a  cold  white  shine 
That  only  gummed  the  tumbled  frozen  ruts 
We    tramped  upon.     The    road   was    hard   and 

long, 

But  we  had  what  we  knew  to  comfort  us, 
And  we  had  the  large  humor  of  the  thing 
To  make  it  advantageous  ;  for  men  stopped 
And  eyed  us  on  that  road  from  time  to  time, 
And  on  that  road  the  children  followed  us  ; 
And  all  along  that  road  the  Tilbury  Band 
Blared  indiscreetly  the  Dead  March  in  Saul. 


ISAAC  AND  ARCHIBALD 

ISAAC  and  Archibald  were  two  old  men. 
I  knew  them,  and  I  may  have  laughed  at  them 
A  little;  but  I  must  have  honored  them 
For  they  were  old,  and  they  were  geniuses. 

I  do  not  think  of  either  of  them  now 

Without  remembering,  infallibly, 

A  journey  that  I  made  one  afternoon 

With  Isaac  to  find  out  what  Archibald 

Was  doing  with  his  oats.    It  was  high  time 

Those  oats  were  cut,  said  Isaac  ;  and  he  feared 

That  Archibald  —  well,  he  could  never  feel 

Quite  sure  of  Archibald.    Accordingly 

The  good  old  man  invited  me  —  that  is, 

Permitted  me — to  go  along  with  him; 

And  I,  with  a  small  boy's  adhesiveness 

To  competent  old  age,  got  up  and  went. 

I  do  not  know  that  I  cared  overmuch 

For  Archibald's  or  anybody's  oats, 

But  Archibald  was  quite  another  thing, 

And  Isaac  yet  another ;   and  the  world 

Was  wide,  and  there  was  gladness  everywhere. 


86  ISAAC   AND   ARCHIBALD 

We  walked  together  down  the  River  Road 

With  all  the  warmth  and  wonder  of  the  land 

Around  us,  and  the  wayside  flash  of  leaves,  — 

And  Isaac  said  the  day  was  glorious ; 

But  somewhere  at  the  end  of  the  first  mile 

I  found  that  I  was  figuring  to  find 

How  long  those  ancient  legs  of  his  would  keep 

The  pace  that  he  had  set  for  them.    The  sun 

Was  hot,  and  I  was  ready  to  sweat  blood  ; 

But  Isaac,  for  aught  I  could  make  of  him, 

Was  cool  to  his  hat-band.    So  I  said  then 

With  a  dry  gasp  of  affable  despair, 

Something  about  the  scorching  days  we  have 

In  August  without  knowing  it  sometimes; 

But  Isaac  said  the  day  was  like  a  dream, 

And  praised  the  Lord,  and  talked  about  the  breeze, 

I  made  a  fair  confession  of  the  breeze, 

And  crowded  casually  on  his  thought 

The  nearness  of  a  profitable  nook 

That  I  could  see.    First  I  was  half  inclined 

To  caution  him  that  he  was  growing  old, 

But  something  that  was  not  compassion  soon 

Made  plain  the  folly  of  all  subterfuge. 

Isaac  was  old,  but  not  so  old  as  that. 

So  I  proposed,  without  an  overture, 
That  we  be  seated  in  the  shade  a  while, 


ISAAC    AND    ARCHIBALD  87 

And  Isaac  made  no  murmur.    Soon  the  talk 

Was  turned  on  Archibald,  and  I  began 

To  feel  some  premonitions  of  a  kind 

That  only  childhood  knows  ;  for  the  old  man 

Had  looked  at  me  and  clutched  me  with  his  eye, 

And  asked  if  I  had  ever  noticed  things. 

I  told  him  that  I  could  not  think  of  them, 

And  I  knew  then,  by  the  frown  that  left  his  face 

Unsatisfied,  that  I  had  injured  him. 

<c  My  good  young  friend,"  he  said,  "  you  cannot 

feel 

What  I  have  seen  so  long.    You  have  the  eyes  — 
Oh,  yes  —  but  you  have  not  the  other  things  : 
The  sight  within  that  never  will  deceive, 
You  do  not  know  —  you  have  no  right  to  know ; 
The  twilight  warning  of  experience, 
The  singular  idea  of  loneliness,  — 
These  are  not  yours.     But  they  have  long  been 

mine, 

And  they  have  shown  me  now  for  seven  years 
That  Archibald  is  changing.    It  is  not 
So  much  that  he  should  come  to  his  last  hand, 
And  leave  the  game,  and  go  the  old  way  down  j 
But  I  have  known  him  in  and  out  so  long, 
And  I  have  seen  so  much  of  good  in  him 
That  other  men  have  shared  and  have  not  seen, 
And  I  have  gone  so  far  through  thick  and  thin, 


88  ISAAC    AND    ARCHIBALD 

Through  cold  and  fire  with  him,  that  it  brings 
To  this  old  heart  of  mine  an  ache  that  you 
Have  not  yet  lived  enough  to  know  about. 
But  even  unto  you,  with  your  boy's  faith, 
Your  freedom,  and  your  untried  confidence, 
A  time  will  come  to  find  out  what  it  means 
To  know  that  you  are  losing  what  was  yours, 
To  know  that  you  are  being  left  behind  ; 
And  then  the  long  contempt  of  innocence  — 
God  bless  you,  boy  !  —  don't  think  the  worse  of 

it 

Because  an  old  man  chatters  in  the  shade  — 
Will  all  be  like  a  story  you  have  read 
In  childhood  and  remembered  for  the  pictures. 
And  when  the  best  friend  of  your  life  goes  down, 
When  first  you  know  in  him  the  slackening 
That  comes,  and  coming  always  tells  the  end,  — 
Now  in  a  common  word  that  would  have  passed 
Uncaught  from  any  other  lips  than  his, 
Now  in  some  trivial  act  of  every  day, 
Done  as  he  might  have  done  it  all  along 
But  for  a  twinging  little  difference 
That  bites  you  like  a  squirrel's  teeth  —  oh,  yes, 
Then  you  will  understand  it  well  enough. 
But  oftener  it  comes  in  other  ways ; 
It  comes  without  your  knowing  when  it  comes  ; 
You  know  that  he  is  changing,  and  you  know 


ISAAC   AND   ARCHIBALD  89 

That  he  is  going — just  as  I  know  now 

That  Archibald  is  going  and  that  I 

Am  staying.  .  .  .  Look  at  me,  my  boy, 

And  when  the  time  shall  come  for  you  to  see 

That  I  must  follow  after  him,  try  then 

To  think  of  me,  to  bring  me  back  again, 

Just  as  I  was  to-day.    Think  of  the  place 

Where  we  are  sitting  now,  and  think  of  me  — 

Think  of  old  Isaac  as  you  knew  him  then, 

When  you  set  out  with  him  in  August  once 

To  see  old  Archibald."  —  The  words  come  back 

Almost  as  Isaac  must  have  uttered  them, 

And  there  comes  with  them  a  dry  memory 

Of  something  in  my  throat  that  would  not  move. 

If  you  had  asked  me  then  to  tell  just  why 

I  made  so  much  of  Isaac  and  the  things 

He  said,  I  should  have  reached  far  for  an  answer ; 

For  I  knew  it  was  not  sorrow  that  I  felt, 

Whatever  I  may  have  wished  it,  or  tried  then 

To  make  myself  believe.    My  mouth  was  full 

Of  words,  and  they  would  have  been  comforting 

To  Isaac,  spite  of  my  twelve  years,  I  think ; 

But  there  was  not  in  me  the  willingness 

To  speak  them  out.    Therefore   I  watched  the 

ground  ; 
And  I  was  wondering  what  made  the  Lord 


90  ISAAC   AND   ARCHIBALD 

Create  a  thing  so  nervous  as  an  ant, 
When  Isaac,  with  commendable  unrest, 
Ordained  that  we  should  take  the  road  again  — 
For  it  was  yet  three  miles  to  Archibald's, 
And  one  to  the  first  pump.    I  felt  relieved 
All  over  when  the  old  man  told  me  that ; 
I  felt  that  he  had  stilled  a  fear  of  mine 
That  those  extremities  of  heat  and  cold 
Which  he  had  long  gone  through  with  Archibald 
Had  made  the  man  impervious  to  both  ; 
But  Isaac  had  a  desert  somewhere  in  him, 
And  at  the  pump  he  thanked  God  for  all  things 
That  he  had  put  on  earth  for  men  to  drink, 
And  he  drank  well,  —  so  well  that  I  proposed 
That  we  go  slowly  lest  I  learn  too  soon 
The  bitterness  of  being  left  behind, 
And  all  those  other  things.    That  was  a  joke 
To  Isaac,  and  it  pleased  him  very  much  ; 
And  that  pleased  me  —  for  I  was  twelve  years 
old. 

At  the  end  of  an  hour's  walking  after  that 
The  cottage  of  old  Archibald  appeared. 
Little  and  white  and  high  on  a  smooth  round  hill 
It  stood,  with  hackmatacks  and  apple-trees 
Before  it,  and  a  big  barn-roof  beyond  ; 
And  over  the    place  —  trees,  houses,  fields  and 
all  — 


ISAAC   AND   ARCHIBALD  91 

Hovered  an  air  of  still  simplicity 
And  a  fragrance  of  old  summers  —  the  old  style 
That  lives  the  while  it  passes.    I  dare  say 
That  I  was  lightly  conscious  of  all  this 
When  Isaac,  of  a  sudden,  stopped  himself, 
And  for  the  long  first  quarter  of  a  minute 
Gazed  with  incredulous  eyes,  forgetful  quite 
Of  breezes  and  of  me  and  of  all  else 
Under  the  scorching  sun  but  a  smooth-cut  field, 
Faint  yellow  in  the  distance.    I  was  young, 
But  there  were  a  few  things  that  I  could  see, 
And  this  was  one  of  them.  —  "  Well,  well !  "  said 

he; 

And  "  Archibald  will  be  surprised,  I  think," 
Said  I.    But  all  my  childhood  subtlety 
Was  lost  on  Isaac,  for  he  strode  along 
Like  something  out  of  Homer  —  powerful 
And  awful  on  the  wayside,  so  I  thought. 
Also  I  thought  how  good  it  was  to  be 
So  near  the  end  of  my  short-legged  endeavor 
To  keep  the  pace  with  Isaac  for  five  miles. 

Hardly  had  we  turned  in  from  the  main  road 
When  Archibald,  with  one  hand  on  his  back 
And  the  other  clutching  his  huge-headed  cane, 
Came  limping  down  to  meet  us.  —  «  Well !  well ! 
well !  " 


92  ISAAC   AND    ARCHIBALD 

Said  he ;  and  then  he  looked  at  my  red  face, 
All  streaked  with  dust  and  sweat,  and  shook  my 

hand, 

And  said  it  must  have  been  a  right  smart  walk 
That  we  had  had  that  day  from  Tilbury  Town.  — 
"  Magnificent,"  said  Isaac  ;  and  he  told 
About  the  beautiful  west  wind  there  was 
Which  cooled  and  clarified  the  atmosphere. 
"  You  must  have  made  it  with  your  legs,  I  guess," 
Said  Archibald  ;  and  Isaac  humored  him 
With  one  of  those  infrequent  smiles  of  his 
Which  he  kept  in  reserve,  apparently, 
For  Archibald  alone.    "  But  why,"  said  he, 
u  Should  Providence  have  cider  in  the  world 
If  not  for  such  an  afternoon  as  this  ?  " 
And  Archibald,  with  a  soft  light  in  his  eyes, 
Replied  that  if  he  chose  to  go  down  cellar, 
There  he  would  find  eight  barrels  —  one  of  which 
Was  newly  tapped,  he  said,  and  to  his  taste 
An  honor  to  the  fruit.    Isaac  approved 
Most  heartily  of  that,  and  guided  us 
Forthwith,  as  if  his  venerable  feet 
Were  measuring  the  turf  in  his  own  door-yard, 
Straight  to  the  open  rollway.    Down  we  went, 
Out  of  the  fiery  sunshine  to  the  gloom, 
Grateful  and  half  sepulchral,  where  we  found 
The  barrels,  like  eight  potent  sentinels, 


ISAAC   AND   ARCHIBALD  93 

Close  ranged  along  the  wall.    From  one  of  them 
A  bright  pine  spile  stuck  out  convincingly, 
And  on  the  black  flat  stone,  just  under  it, 
Glimmered  a  late-spilled  proof  that  Archibald 
Had  spoken  from  unfeigned  experience. 
There  was  a  fluted  antique  water-glass 
Close  by,  and  in  it,  prisoned,  or  at  rest, 
There  was  a  cricket,  of  the  brown  soft  sort 
That  feeds  on  darkness.    Isaac  turned  him  out, 
And  touched  him  with  his  thumb  to  make  him 

jump, 

And  then  composedly  pulled  out  the  plug 
With  such  a  practiced  hand  that  scarce  a  drop 
Did  even  touch  his  ringers.    Then  he  drank 
And  smacked  his  lips  with  a  slow  patronage 
And  looked  along  the  line  of  barrels  there 
With  a  pride  that  may  have  been  forgetfulness : 
"  I  never  twist  a  spigot  nowadays," 
He  said,  and  raised  the  glass  up  to  the  light, 
"  But  I  thank  God  for  orchards."   And  that  glass 
Was  filled  repeatedly  for  the  same  hand 
Before  I  thought  it  worth  while  to  discern 
Again  that  I  was  young,  and  that  old  age, 
With  all  his  woes,  had  some  advantages. 

"  Now,  Archibald,"  said  Isaac,  when  we  stood 
Outside  again,  "  I  have  it  in  my  mind 


94  ISAAC    AND   ARCHIBALD 

That  I  shall  take  a  sort  of  little  walk  — 

To  stretch  my  legs  and  see  what  you  are  doing. 

You  stay  and  rest  your  back  and  tell  the  boy 

A  story  :  Tell  him  all  about  the  time 

In  Stafford's  cabin  forty  years  ago, 

When  four  of  us  were  snowed  up  for  ten  days 

With  only  one  dried  haddock.     Tell  him  all 

About  it,  and  be  wary  of  your  back. 

Now  I  will  go  along."  —  I  looked  up  then 

At  Archibald,  and  as  I  looked  I  saw 

The  way  his  nostrils  widened  once  or  twice 

And  then  grew  narrow.     I  can  hear  to-day 

The  way  the  old  man  chuckled  to  himself — 

Not  wholesomely,  not  wholly  to  convince 

Another  of  his  mirth,  —  as  I  can  hear 

The  lonely  sigh  that  followed.  —  But  at  length 

He  said :  "  The  orchard  now 's  the  place  for  us  ; 

We  may  find  something  like  an  apple  there, 

And  we  shall  have  the  shade,  at  any  rate." 

So  there  we  went  and  there  we  laid  ourselves 

Where  the  sunlight  could  not  reach  us  ;  and  I 

champed 

A  dozen  of  worm-blighted  astrakhans 
While  Archibald  said  nothing  —  merely  told 
The  tale  of  Stafford's  cabin,  which  was  good, 
Though     u  master     chilly "  —  after     his     own 

phrase  — 


ISAAC    AND    ARCHIBALD  95 

Even  for  a  day  like  that.     But  other  thoughts 
Were  moving  in  his  mind,  imperative, 
And  writhing  to  be  spoken :  I  could  see 
The  glimmer  of  them  in  a  glance  or  two, 
Cautious,  or  else  unconscious,  that  he  gave 
Over  his  shoulder  :   .  .   .  "  Stafford  and  the  rest 
Would  have  had  no  story  of  their  own  to  tell ; 
They  would  have  left  it  all  for  others  —  yes  — 
But  that 's  an  old  song  now,  and  Archibald 
And  Isaac  are  old  men.     Remember,  boy, 
That  we  are  old.     Whatever  we  have  gained, 
Or  lost,  or  thrown  away,  we  are  old  men. 
You  look  before  you  and  we  look  behind, 
And  we  are  playing  life  out  in  the  shadow  — 
But  that 's  not  all  of  it.     The  sunshine  lights 
A  good  road  yet  before  us  if  we  look, 
And  we  are  doing  that  when  least  we  know  it ; 
For  both  of  us  are  children  of  the  sun, 
Like  you,  and  like  the  weed  there  at  your  feet. 
The  shadow  calls  us,  and  it  frightens  us  — 
We  think ;  but  there  's  a  light  behind  the  stars 
And  we  old  fellows  who  have  dared  to  live, 
We  see  it  —  and  we  see  the  other  things, 
The  other  things.   .   .   .  Yes,  I  have  seen  it  come 
These  eight   years,  and    these  ten  years,   and  I 

know 
Now  that  it  cannot  be  for  very  long 


96  ISAAC   AND   ARCHIBALD 

That  Isaac  will  be  Isaac.     You  have  seen  — 
Young    as   you    are,   you    must    have    seen    the 

strange 

Uncomfortable  habit  of  the  man  ? 
He  '11  take  my  nerves  and  tie  them  in  a  knot 
Sometimes,  and  that 's  not  Isaac.     I  know  that  — 
And  I  know  what  it  is  :  I  get  it  here 
A  little,  in  my  knees,  and  Isaac  —  here." 
The  old  man  shook  his  head  regretfully 
And  laid   his  knuckles  three  times  on  his  fore 
head. 

"  That 's  what  it  is  :  Isaac  is  not  quite  right. 
You  see  it,  but  you  don't  know  what  it  means : 
The  thousand  little  differences  —  no, 
You  do  not  know  them,  and  it 's  well  you  don't ; 
You  '11    know  them   soon   enough  —  God   bless 

you,  boy  !  — 

You  '11  know  them,  but  not  all  of  them — not  all. 
So  think  of  them  as  little  as  you  can  : 
There 's  nothing  in  them  for  you,  or  for  me  — 
But  I  am  old  and  I  must  think  of  them  j 
I  'm  in  the  shadow,  but  I  don't  forget 
The  light,  my  boy,  —  the  light  behind  the  stars. 
Remember  that  :  remember  that  I  said  it ; 
And  when  the  time  that  you  think  far  away 
Shall  come  for  you  to  say  it  —  say  it,  boy  ; 
Let  there  be  no  confusion  or  distrust 


ISAAC   AND   ARCHIBALD  97 

In  you,  no  snarling  of  a  life  half  lived, 
Nor  any  cursing  over  broken  things 
That  your  complaint  has  been  the  ruin  of. 
Live  to  see  clearly  and  the  light  will  come 
To  you,  and  as  you  need  it.  —  But  there,  there, 
I  'm  going  it  again,  as  Isaac  says, 
And  I  '11  stop  now  before  you  go  to  sleep.  — 
Only  be  sure  that  you  growl  cautiously, 
And  always   where   the  shadow   may  not  reach 
you." 

Never  shall  I  forget,  long  as  I  live, 
The  quaint  thin  crack  in  Archibald's  old  voice, 
The  lonely  twinkle  in  his  little  eyes, 
Or  the  way  it  made  me  feel  to  be  with  him. 
I  know  I  lay  and  looked  for  a  long  time 
Down  through  the  orchard  and  across  the  road, 
Across  the  river  and  the  sun-scorched  hills 
That  ceased  in  a  blue  forest,  where  the  world 
Ceased  with  it.     Now  and  then  my  fancy  caught 
A  flying  glimpse  of  a  good  life  beyond  — 
Something  of  ships  and  sunlight,  streets  and  sing 
ing, 

Troy  falling,  and  the  ages  coming  back, 
And  ages  coming  forward :  Archibald 
And  Isaac  were  good  fellows  in  old  clothes 
And  Agamemnon  was  a  friend  of  mine  ; 


98  ISAAC   AND   ARCHIBALD 

Ulysses  coming  home  again  to  shoot 

With  bows  and  feathered  arrows  made  another, 

And  all  was  as  it  should  be.     I  was  young. 

So  I  lay  dreaming  of  what  things  I  would, 

Calm  and  incorrigibly  satisfied 

With  apples  and  romance  and  ignorance, 

And   the   floating  smoke    from   Archibald's  clay 

pipe. 

There  was  a  stillness  over  everything, 
As  if  the  spirit  of  heat  had  laid  its  hand 
Upon  the  world  and  hushed  it ;  and  I  felt 
Within  the  mightiness  of  the  white  sun 
That  smote  the  land  around  us  and  wrought  out 
A  fragrance  from  the  trees,  a  vital  warmth 
And  fullness  for  the  time  that  was  to  come, 
And  a  glory  for  the  world  beyond  the  forest. 
The  present  and  the  future  and  the  past, 
Isaac  and  Archibald,  the  burning  bush, 
The  Trojans  and  the  walls  of  Jericho, 
Were  beautifully  fused ;  and  all  went  well 
Till  Archibald  began  to  fret  for  Isaac 
And  said  it  was  a  master  day  for  sunstroke. 
That  was  enough  to  make  a  mummy  smile, 
I  thought ;  and  I  remained  hilarious, 
In  face  of  all  precedence  and  respect, 
Till  Isaac  (who  had  come  to  us  unheard) 


ISAAC    AND    ARCHIBALD  99 

Found  he  had  no  tobacco,  looked  at  me 
Peculiarly,  and  asked  of  Archibald 
What  ailed  the  boy  to  make  him  chirrup  so. 
From  that  he  told  us  what  a  blessed  world 
The  Lord  had  given  us.  —  "  But,  Archibald, 
He  added,  with  a  sweet  severity 
That  made  me  think  of  peach-skins  and  goose- 
flesh, 

"  I  'm  half  afraid  you  cut  those  oats  of  yours 
A  day  or  two  before  they  were  well  set." 
"  They  were  set  well  enough,"  said  Archibald,  — 
And  I  remarked  the  process  of  his  nose 
Before  the  words  came  out ;  "  but  never  mind 
Your    neighbor's    oats  :     you    stay    here    in    the 

shade 

And  rest  yourself  while  I  go  find  the  cards. 
We  '11  have  a  little  game  of  seven-up 
And  let  the  boy  keep  count."  —  "  We  '11  have 

the  game, 

Assuredly,"  said  Isaac  ;  "  and  I  think 
That  I  will  have  a  draught  of  cider,  also."  — 
They  marched  away  together  towards  the  house 
And  left  me  to  my  childish  ruminations 
Upon  the  ways  of  men.     I  followed  them 
Down  cellar  with  my  fancy,  and  then  left  them 
For  a  fairer  vision  of  all  things  at  once 
That  was  anon  to  be  destroyed  again 


ioo  ISAAC    AND    ARCHIBALD 

By  the  sound  of  voices  and  of  heavy  feet  — 
One  of  the  sounds  of  life  that  I  remember, 
Though  I  forget  so  many  that  rang  first 
As    if   they    were    thrown    down    to   me  from 
Sinai. 

So  I  remember,  even  to  this  day, 
Just  how   they  sounded,  how  they  placed  them 
selves, 

And  how  the  game  went  on  while  I  made  marks 
And  crossed  them  out,  and  meanwhile  made  some 

Trojans. 

Likewise  I  made  Ulysses,  after  Isaac, 
And  a  little  after  Flaxman.     Archibald 
Was  wounded  when  he  found  himself  left  out, 
But  he  had  no  heroics,  and  I  said  so  : 
I  told  him  that  his  white  beard  was  too  long 
And    too    straight    down    to    be    like    things   in 

Homer. 

"  Quite  so,"  said  Isaac.  —  "Low,"  said  Archi 
bald; 

And  he  threw  down  a  deuce  with  a  deep  grin 
That   showed    his    yellow    teeth    and    made    me 

happy. 

So  they  played  on  till  a  bell  rang  from  the  door, 
And  Archibald  said,  "  Supper."  —  After  that 
The  old  men  smoked  while  I  sat  watching  them 


ISAAC    AND    ARCHIBALD  101 

And  wondered  with  all  comfort  what  might  come 
To  me,  and  what  might  never  come  to  me ; 
And  when    the    time    came    for   the   long  walk 

home 

With  Isaac  in  the  twilight,  I  could  see 
The  forest  and  the  sunset  and  the  sky-line, 
No  matter  where  it  was  that  I  was  looking : 
The  flame  beyond  the  boundary,  the  music, 
The  foam  and  the  white  ships,  and  two  old  men 
Were  things   that  would  not  leave  me.  —  And 

that  night 
There  came  to  me  a  dream  —  a  shining  one, 

D  ' 

With  two  old  angels  in  it.     They  had  wings, 
And  they  were  sitting  where  a  silver  light 
Suffused  them,  face  to  face.     The  wings  of  one 
Began  to  palpitate  as  I  approached, 
But  I  was  yet  unseen  when  a  dry  voice 
Cried  thinly,  with  unpatronizing  triumph, 
"  I  've  got  you,  Isaac  ;  high,  low,  jack,  and  the 
game." 

Isaac  and  Archibald  have  gone  their  way 
To  the  silence  of  the  loved  and  well-forgotten. 
I  knew  them,  and  I  may  have  laughed  at  them  ; 
But  there 's  a  laughing  that  has  honor  in  it, 
And  I  have  no  regret,  for  light  words  now. 
Rather  I  think  sometimes  they  may  have  made 


102  ISAAC   AND    ARCHIBALD 

Their   sport   of  me ;  —  but  they   would  not  do 

that, 
They  were  too  old  for  that.  They  were  old 

men, 
And  I  may  laugh  at  them  because  I  knew  them. 


THE  RETURN  OF  MORGAN  AND 
FINGAL 

AND  there  we  were  together  again  — 

Together  again,  we  three : 
Morgan,  Fingal,  fiddle,  and  all, 

They  had  come  for  the  night  with  me. 

The  spirit  of  joy  was  in  Morgan's  wrist, 
There  were  songs  in  FingaPs  throat ; 

And  secure  outside,  for  the  spray  to  drench, 
Was  a  tossed  and  empty  boat. 

And   there   were   the  pipes,  and   there   was  the 
punch, 

And  somewhere  were  twelve  years ; 
So  it  came,  in  the  manner  of  things  unsought, 

That  a  quick  knock  vexed  our  ears. 

The  night  wind  hovered  and  shrieked  and  snarled, 

And  I  heard  Fingal  swear ; 
Then  I  opened  the  door  —  but  I  found  no  more 

Than  a  chalk-skinned  woman  there. 


104     RETURN   OF  MORGAN  AND   FINGAL 

I  looked,  and  at  last,  "  What  is  it  ?  "  I  said  — 

"  What  is  it  that  we  can  do  ?  " 
But  never  a  word  could  I  get  from  her 

But  "  You  —  you  three  —  it  is  you  !  " 

Now  the  sense  of  a  crazy  speech  like  that 
Was  more  than  a  man  could  make  ; 

So  I  said,  "  But  we — we  are  what,  we  three  ?  " 
And  I  saw  the  creature  shake. 

"  Be  quick !  "  she  cried,  "  for  I  left  her  dead  — 

And  I  was  afraid  to  come  ; 
But  you,  you  three  —  God  made  it  be  — 

Will  ferry  the  dead  girl  home. 

"  Be  quick  !  be  quick  !  —  but  listen  to  that 
Who  is  it  that  makes  it  ?  — hark  !  " 

But  I  heard  no  more  than  a  knocking  splash 
And  a  wind  that  shook  the  dark. 

"  It  is  only  the  wind  that  blows,"  I  said, 
"  And  the  boat  that  rocks  outside." 

And  I  watched  her  there,  and  I  pitied  her  there  — 
"  Be  quick !  be  quick !  "  she  cried. 

She  cried  it  so  loud  that  her  voice  went  in 
To  find  where  my  two  friends  were ; 


RETURN  OF  MORGAN  AND  FINGAL     105 

So  Morgan  came,  and  Fingal  came, 
And  out  we  went  with  her. 

'T  was  a  lonely  way  for  a  man  to  take 

And  a  tedious  way  for  three ; 
And  over  the  water,  and  all  day  long, 

They  had  come  for  the  night  with  me. 

But  the  girl  was  dead,  as  the  woman  had  said, 

And  the  best  we  could  see  to  do 
Was  to  lay  her  aboard.     The  north  wind  roared, 

And  into  the  night  we  flew. 

Four  of  us  living  and  one  for  a  ghost, 

Furrowing  crest  and  swell, 

Through  the  surge  and  the  dark,  for  that  faint  far 
spark, 

We  ploughed  with  Azrael. 

Three  of  us  ruffled  and  one  gone  mad, 

Crashing  to  south  we  went ; 
And    three   of  us    there    were   too  spattered  to 
care 

What  this  late  sailing  meant. 

So  down  we  steered  and  along  we  tore 
Through  the  flash  of  the  midnight  foam  : 


io6     RETURN  OF  MORGAN  AND   FINGAL 

Silent  enough  to  be  ghosts  on  guard, 
We  ferried  the  dead  girl  home. 

We  ferried  her  down  to  the  voiceless  wharf, 
And  we  carried  her  up  to  the  light ; 

And  we  left  the  two  to  the  father  there, 
Who  counted  the  coals  that  night. 

Then  back  we  steered  through  the  foam  again, 
But  our  thoughts  were  fast  and  few ; 

And  all  we  did  was  to  crowd  the  surge 
And  to  measure  the  life  we  knew  ;  — 

Till  at  last  we  came  where  a  dancing  gleam 

Skipped  out  to  us,  we  three,  — 
And  the  dark  wet  mooring  pointed  home 

Like  a  finger  from  the  sea. 

Then  out  we  pushed  the  teetering  skiff 

And  in  we  drew  to  the  stairs ; 
And  up  we  went,  each  man  content 

With  a  life  that  fed  no  cares. 

Fingers  were  cold  and  feet  were  cold, 

And  the  tide  was  cold  and  rough  ; 
But  the  light  was  warm,  and  the  room  was  warm, 

And  the  world  was  good  enough. 


RETURN   OF  MORGAN  AND   FINGAL     107 

And    there  were  the  pipes,  and   there  was  the 
punch, 

More  shrewd  than  Satan's  tears : 
Fingal  had  fashioned  it,  all  by  himself, 

With  a  craft  that  comes  of  years. 

And  there  we  were  together  again  — 

Together  again,  we  three : 
Morgan,  Fingal,  fiddle,  and  all, 

They  were  there  for  the  night  with  me. 


AUNT  IMOGEN 

AUNT  IMOGEN  was  coming,  and  therefore 

The    children  —  Jane,    Sylvester,    and    Young 

George  — 

Were  eyes  and  ears ;  for  there  was  only  one 
Aunt  Imogen  to  them  in  the  whole  world, 
And  she  was  in  it  only  for  four  weeks 
In  fifty-two.     But  those  great  bites  of  time 
Made  all  September  a  Queen's  Festival ; 
And  they  would  strive,  informally,  to  make 
The  most  of  them.  —  The  mother  understood, 
And  wisely  stepped  away.     Aunt  Imogen 
Was  there  for  only  one  month  in  the  year, 
While  she,  the  mother,  —  she  was  always  there ; 
And  that  was  what  made  all  the  difference. 
She  knew  it  must  be  so,  for  Jane  had  once 
Expounded  it  to  her  so  learnedly 
That  she  had  looked  away  from  the  child's  eyes 
And    thought ;    and    she  had    thought    of   many 

things. 

There  was  a  demonstration  every  time 
Aunt  Imogen  appeared,  and  there  was  more 


AUNT   IMOGEN  109 

Than  one  this  time.     And  she  was  at  a  loss 

Just  how  to  name  t*he  meaning  of  it  all : 

It  puzzled  her  to  think  that  she  could  be 

So  much  to  any  crazy  things  alive  — 

Even  to  her  sister's  little  savages 

Who  knew  no  better  than  to  be  themselves ; 

But  in  the  midst  of  her  glad  wonderment 

She  found  herself  besieged  and  overcome 

By  two  tight  arms  and  one  tumultuous  head, 

And  therewith  half  bewildered  and  half  pained 

By  the  joy  she  felt  and  by  the  sudden  love 

That  proved  itself  in  childhood's  honest  noise. 

Jane,  by  the  wings  of  sex,  had  reached  her  first ; 

And  while  she  strangled  her,  approvingly, 

Sylvester  thumped  his  drum  and  Young  George 

howled.  — 

But  finally,  when  all  was  rectified, 
And  she  had  stilled  the  clamor  of  Young  George 
By  letting  him  go  "  pig-back  "  through  the  hall, 
They  went  together  into  the  old  room 
That  looked  across  the  fields ;  and  Imogen 
Gazed  out  with  a  girl's  gladness  in  her  eyes, 
Happy  to  know  that  she  was  back  once  more 
Where  there  were  those  who  knew  her,  and  at 

last 

Had  gloriously  got  away  again 
From  cabs  and  clattered  asphalt  for  a  while ; 


no  AUNT   IMOGEN 

And   there  she   sat   and   talked  and   looked   and 

laughed 

And  made  the  mother  and  the  children  laugh. 
Aunt  Imogen  made  everybody  laugh. 

There  was  the  feminine  paradox  —  that  she 
Who  had  so  little  sunshine  for  herself 
Should  have  so  much  for  others.     How  it  was 
That  she  could  make,  and  feel  for  making  it, 
So  much  of  joy  for  them,  and  all  along 
Be  covering,  like  a  scar,  the  while  she  smiled, 

That  hungering  incompleteness  and  regret 

That  passionate  ache  for  something  of  her  own, 
For  something  of  herself —  she  never  knew. 
She  knew  that  she  could  seem  to  make  them  all 
Believe  there  was  no  other  part  of  her 
Than  her  persistent  happiness  ;  but  the  why 
And  how  she  did  not  know.     Still  none  of  them 

Could  have  a  thought  that  she  was  living  down 

Almost  as  if  regret  were  criminal, 

So  proud  it  was  and  yet  so  profitless  — 

The  penance  of  a  dream,  and  that  was  good  : 

Even  her  big  bewhiskered  brother  Giles 

Had  called  her  in  his  letter,  not  long  since, 

A  superannuated  pretty  girl ; 

And  she,  to  do  the  thing  most  adequate, 

Had  posted  back  sarcastic  sheets  enough 


AUNT   IMOGEN  m 

To  keep  the  beast  in  humor  for  a  month. 
But  her  sister  Jane  —  the  mother  of  little  Jane, 
Sylvester,  and  Young  George  —  may,  after  all, 
Have  known;   for  she  was — well,   she  was   a 
woman. 

Young  George,  however,  did  not  yield  himself 

To  nourish  the  false  hunger  of  a  ghost 

That  made  no  good  return.      He  saw  too  much  : 

The  accumulated  wisdom  of  his  years 

Had  so  conclusively  made  plain  to  him 

The  permanent  profusion  of  a  world 

Where  everybody  might  have  everything 

To  do,  and  almost  everything  to  eat, 

That  he  was  jubilantly  satisfied 

And  all  unthwarted  by  adversity. 

Young  George  knew  things.     The  world,  he  had 

found  out, 

Was  a  good  place,  and  life  was  a  good  game  — 
Particularly  when  Aunt  Imogen 
Was  in  it.     And  one  day  it  came  to  pass  — 
One  rainy  day  when  she  was  holding  him 
And  rocking  him  —  that  he,  in  his  own  right, 
Took  it  upon  himself  to  tell  her  so  ; 

And  something  in  his  way  of  telling  it 

The  language,  or  the  tone,  or  something  else  — 
Gripped  like  a  baby's  fingers  on  her  throat, 


ii2  AUNT   IMOGEN 

And  then  went  feeling  through  as  if  to  make 

A  plaything  of  her  heart.     Such  undeserved 

And  unsophisticated  confidence 

Went  mercilessly  home  ;  and  had  she  sat 

Before  a  looking  glass,  the  deeps  of  it 

Could  not  have  shown  more  clearly  to  her  then 

Than    one    thought-mirrored    little   glimpse    had 

shown, 
The  pang  that  wrenched  her  face  and  filled  her 

eyes 

With  anguish  and  intolerable  mist. 
The  blow  that  she  had  vaguely  thrust  aside 
Like  fright  so  many  times  had  found  her  now  : 
Clean-thrust  and  final  it  had  come  to  her 
From  a  child's  lips  at  last,  as  it  had  come 
Never  before,  and  as  it  might  be  felt 
Never  again.     Some  grief,  like  some  delight, 
Stings  hard  but  once  :  to  custom  after  that 
The  rapture  or  the  pain  submits  itself, 
And  we  are  wiser  than  we  were  before. 
And  Imogen  was  wiser;  though  at  first 
Her  dream-defeating  wisdom  was  indeed 
A  thankless  heritage  :  there  was  no  sweet, 
No  bitter  now ;  nor  was  there  anything 
To  make  a  daily  meaning  for  her  life  — 
Till  truth,  like  Harlequin,  leapt  out  somehow 
From  ambush  and  threw  sudden  savor  to  it  — 


AUNT   IMOGEN  113 

But  the  blank  taste  of  time.     There  were  no 

dreams, 

No  phantoms  in  her  future  any  more  : 
One  clinching  revelation  of  what  was, 
One  by-flash  of  irrevocable  chance, 
Had  acridly  but  honestly  foretold 
The  mystical  fulfillment  of  a  life 
That  might  have    once  .  .  .  But  that  was  all 

gone  by : 

There  was  no  need  of  reaching  back  for  that : 
The  triumph  was  not  hers :  there  was  no  love 
Save  borrowed  love :  there  was  no  might  have 

been. 

But  there  was  yet  Young  George  —  and  he  had 

gone 

Conveniently  to  sleep,  like  a  good  boy  ; 
And  there  was  yet  Sylvester  with  his  drum, 
And  there  was  frowzle-headed  little  Jane  ; 
And  there  was  Jane  the  sister,  and  the  mother,  — 
Her  sister,  and  the  mother  of  them  all. 
They  were  not  hers,  not  even  one  of  them : 
She  was  not  born  to  be  so  much  as  that, 
For  she  was  born  to  be  Aunt  Imogen. 
Now  she  could  see  the  truth  and  look  at  it ; 
Now  she  could  make  stars  out  where  once  had 

palled 


n4  AUNT   IMOGEN 

A  future's  emptiness  ;  now  she  could  share 
With  others  —  ah,  the  others  !  —  to  the  end 
The  largess  of  a  woman  who  could  smile ; 
Now  it  was  hers  to  dance  the  folly  down, 
And  all  the  murmuring ;  now  it  was  hers 
To  be  Aunt  Imogen.  —  So,  when  Young  George 
Woke  up  and  blinked  at  her  with  his  big  eyes, 
And  smiled  to  see  the  way  she  blinked  at  him, 
'T  was  only  in  old  concord  with  the  stars 
That  she  took  hold  of  him  and  held  him  close, 
Close  to  herself,  and  crushed  him  till  he  laughed. 


THE  KLONDIKE 

NEVER  mind  the  day  we  left,  or  the  way  the 
women  clung  to  us ; 

All  we  need  now  is  the  last  way  they  looked  at 
us. 

Never  mind  the  twelve  men  there  amid  the  cheer 
ing — 

Twelve  men  or  one  man,  't  will  soon  be  all  the 
same ; 

For  this  is  what  we  know :  we  are  five  men  to 
gether, 

Five  left  o'  twelve  men  to  find  the  golden  river. 

Far  we  came  to  find  it  out,  but  the  place  was 

here  for  all  of  us  ; 
Far,  far  we  came,  and  here  we  have  the  last  of 

us. 
We  that  were  the  front  men,  we  that  would  be 

early, 
We  that  had  the  faith,  and  the  triumph  in  our 

eyes: 


n6  THE    KLONDIKE 

We  that  had  the  wrong  road,  twelve  men  to 
gether,  — 

Singing  when  the  devil  sang  to  find  the  golden 
river. 

Say  the  gleam  was  not  for  us,  but  never  say  we 
doubted  it ; 

Say  the  wrong  road  was  right  before  we  followed 
it. 

We  that  were  the  front  men,  fit  for  all  forage,  — 

Say  that  while  we  dwindle  we  are  front  men 
still  ; 

For  this  is  what  we  know  to-night :  we  're  starv 
ing  here  together  — 

Starving  on  the  wrong  road  to  find  the  golden 
river. 

Wrong,  we  say,  but  wait  a  little :  hear  him  in  the 

corner  there ; 
He  knows  more  than  we,  and  he  '11  tell  us  if  we 

listen  there  — 
He  that  fought  the  snow-sleep  less  than  all  the 

others 

Stays  awhile  yet,  and  he  knows  where  he  stays : 
Foot  and  hand  a  frozen  clout,  brain  a  freezing 

feather, 
Still  he 's  here  to  talk  with  us  and  to  the  golden 

river. 


THE   KLONDIKE  117 

<c  Flow,"  he  says,  "  and  flow  along,  but  you  can 
not  flow  away  from  us  ; 

All  the  world's  ice  will  never  keep  you  far  from 
us; 

Every  man  that  heeds  your  call  takes  the  way 
that  leads  him  — 

The  one  way  that 's  his  way,  and  lives  his  own 
life: 

Starve  or  laugh,  the  game  goes  on,  and  on  goes 
the  river ; 

Gold  or  no,  they  go  their  way  —  twelve  men  to 
gether. 

"  Twelve,"  he  says,  "  who  sold  their  shame  for  a 

lure  you  call  too  fair  for  them  — 
You  that  laugh  and  flow  to  the  same  word  that 

urges  them  : 

Twelve  who  left  the  old  town  shining  in  the  sunset, 
Left  the  weary  street  and  the  small  safe  days : 
Twelve  who  knew  but  one  way  out,  wide  the 

way  or  narrow  : 
Twelve  who   took  the   frozen  chance   and    laid 

their  lives  on  yellow. 

"  Flow  by  night  and  flow  by  day,  nor  ever  once 

be  seen  by  them ; 
Flow,  freeze,  and   flow,  till  time  shall  hide  the 

bones  of  them ; 


n8  THE   KLONDIKE 

Laugh  and  wash  their  names  away,  leave  them 

all  forgotten, 

Leave  the  old  town  to  crumble  where  it  sleeps ; 
Leave  it  there  as  they  have  left  it,  shining  in  the 

valley,  — 
Leave  the  town   to  crumble  down  and   let   the 

women  marry. 

u  Twelve  of  us  or  five,"  he  says,  "  we  know  the 
night  is  on  us  now  : 

Five  while  we  last,  and  we  may  as  well  be  think 
ing  now : 

Thinking  each  his  own  thought,  knowing,  when 
the  light  comes, 

Five  left  or  none  left,  the  game  will  not  be  lost. 

Crouch  or  sleep,  we  go  the  way,  the  last  way  to 
gether  : 

Five  or  none,  the  game  goes  on,  and  on  goes  the 
river. 

"  For  after  all  that  we  have  done  and  all  that  we 

have  failed  to  do, 
Life  will  be  life  and  the  world  will  have  its  work 

to  do  : 
Every  man  who  follows  us  will  heed  in  his  own 

fashion 
The  calling  and  the  warning  and  the  friends  who 

do  not  know : 


THE    KLONDIKE  119 

Each  will  hold  an  icy  knife  to  punish  his  heart's 

lover, 
And   each   will   go  the  frozen  way   to  find  the 

golden  river." 

There  you  hear  him,  all   he  says,  and  the  last 

we  '11  ever  get  from  him. 
Now  he  wants  to  sleep,  and  that  will  be  the  best 

for  him. 
Let  him  have  his  own  way  —  no,  you  need  n't 

shake  him  — 

Your  own  turn  will  come,  so  let  the  man  sleep. 
For  this  is  what  we  know  :  we  are  stalled  here 

together— 
Hands  and  feet  and    hearts  of  us,  to  find    the 

golden  river. 

And   there 's  a  quicker   way   than    sleep  ?  .  .  „ 

Never  mind  the  looks  of  him  : 
All   he  needs    now   is  a  finger   on   the    eyes  of 

him. 

You  there  on  the  left  hand,  reach  a  little  over  — 
Shut  the  stars  away,  or  he  '11  see  them  all  night : 
He  '11  see  them  all  night  and  he  '11  see  them  all 

to-morrow, 
Crawling  down  the  frozen  sky,  cold  and  hard  and 

yellow. 


120  THE   KLONDIKE 

Won't  you  move  an  inch  or  two  —  to  keep  the 

stars  away  from  him  ? 
—  No,  he  won't  move,  and  there's  no  need  of 

asking  him. 
Never  mind   the  twelve  men,   never  mind   the 

women ; 

Three  while  we  last,  we  '11  let  them  all  go ; 
And  we  '11   hold  our  thoughts   north  while  we 

starve  here  together, 
Looking  each  his  own  way  to  find   the  golden 

river. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  "LORRAINE" 


WHILE  I  stood  listening,  discreetly  dumb, 
Lorraine  was  having  the  last  word  with  me : 
"  I  know,"  she  said,  "  I  know  it,  but  you  see 
Some  creatures  are  born  fortunate,  and  some 
Are  born  to  be  found  out  and  overcome,  — 
Born  to  be  slaves,  to  let  the  rest  go  free  ; 
And  if  I  'm  one  of  them  (and  I  must  be) 
You  may  as  well  forget  me  and  go  home. 

"  You  tell  me  not  to  say  these  things,  I  know, 
But  I  should  never  try  to  be  content : 
I  've  gone  too  far ;  the  life  would  be  too  slow. 
Some  could  have  done  it  —  some  girls  have  the 

stuff; 

But  I  can't  do  it :  I  don't  know  enough. 
I  'm  going  to  the  devil."  —  And  she  went. 

II 

I  did  not  half  believe  her  when  she  said 
That  I  should  never  hear  from  her  again  j 


122     THE  GROWTH   OF  "LORRAINE" 

Nor  when  I  found  a  letter  from  Lorraine, 

Was  I  surprised  or  grieved  at  what  I  read : 

u  Dear  friend,  when  you  find  this,  I  shall  be  dead. 

You  are  too  far  away  to  make  me  stop. 

They    say    that    one    drop  —  think   of  it,    one 

drop !  — 
Will  be  enough,  —  but  I  '11  take  five  instead. 

"  You  do  not  frown  because  I  call  you  friend, 
For  I  would  have  you  glad  that  I  still  keep 
Your  memory,  and  even  at  the  end  — 
Impenitent,  sick,  shattered  —  cannot  curse 
The  love  that  flings,  for  better  or  for  worse, 
This  worn-out,  cast-out  flesh  of  mine  to  sleep." 


THE  SAGE 

FOREGUARDED  and  unfevered  and  serene, 

Back  to  the  perilous  gates  of  Truth  he  went  — 

Back  to  fierce  wisdom  and  the  Orient, 

To  the  Dawn  that  is,  that  shall  be,  and  has  been : 

Previsioned  of  the  madness  and  the  mean 

He  stood  where  Asia,  crowned  with  ravishment, 

The  curtain  of  Love's  inner  shrine  had  rent, 

And  after  had  gone  scarred  by  the  Unseen. 

There  at  his  touch  there  was  a  treasure  chest, 

And  in  it  was  a  gleam,  but  not  of  gold  ; 

And    on     it,    like    a    flame,    these    words    were 

scrolled  : 

u  I  keep  the  mintage  of  Eternity. 
Who  comes  to  take  one  coin  may  take  the  rest, 
And  all  may  come  —  but  not  without  the  key." 


ERASMUS 

WHEN  he  protested,  not  too  solemnly, 

That  for  a  world's  achieving  maintenance 

The  crust  of  overdone  divinity 

Lacked  aliment,  they  called  it  recreance ; 

And  when  he  chose  through  his  own  glass  to  scan 

Sick  Europe,  and  reduced,  unyieldingly, 

The  monk  within  the  cassock  to  the  man 

Within  the  monk,  they  called  it  heresy. 

And  when  he  made  so  perilously  bold 
As  to  be  scattered  forth  in  black  and  white, 
Good  fathers  looked  askance  at  him  and  rolled 
Their  inward  eyes  in  anguish  and  affright ; 
There  were  some  of  them  did  shake  at  what  was 

told, 
And  they  shook  best  who  knew  that  he  was  right. 


THE  WOMAN  AND  THE  WIFE 

I THE    EXPLANATION 

"  You  thought  we  knew,"  she  said,  "  but  we  were 

wrong. 

This  we  can  say,  the  rest  we  do  not  say ; 
Nor  do  I  let  you  throw  yourself  away 
Because  you  love  me.     Let  us  both  be  strong, 
And  we  shall  find  in  sorrow,  before  long, 
Only  the  price  Love  ruled  that  we  should  pay  : 
The  dark  is  at  the  end  of  every  day, 
And  silence  is  the  end  of  every  song. 

u  You  ask  me  for  one  proof  that  I  speak  right, 
But  I  can  answer  only  what  I  know ; 
You  look  for  just  one  lie  to  make  black  white, 
But  I  can  tell  you  only  what  is  true  — 
God  never  made  me  for  the  wife  of  you. 
This  we  can  say,  —  believe  me  !  ...  Tell  me 
so  !  " 

II THE    ANNIVERSARY 

"  Give  me  the  truth,  whatever  it  may  be. 

You  thought  we  knew,  now  tell  me  what  you  miss : 


iz6      THE    WOMAN   AND   THE   WIFE 

You  are  the  one  to  tell  me  what  it  is  — 
You  are  a  man,  and  you  have  married  me. 
What  is  it  worth  to-night  that  you  can  see 
More  marriage  in  the  dream  of  one  dead  kiss 
Than  in  a  thousand  years  of  life  like  this  ? 
Passion  has  turned  the  lock,  Pride  keeps  the  key. 

"  Whatever  I  have  said  or  left  unsaid, 

Whatever  I  have  done  or  left  undone,  — 

Tell    me.     Tell    me   the   truth.  .  .  .  Are   you 

afraid  ? 

Do  you  think  that  Love  was  ever  fed  with  lies 
But  hunger  lived  thereafter  in  his  eyes? 
Do  you  ask  me  to  take  moonlight  for  the  sun  ? " 


THE  BOOK  OF  ANNANDALE 


PARTLY  to  think,  more  to  be  left  alone, 

George  Annandale  said  something  to  his  friends  — 

A    word    or    two,    brusque,    but    yet     smoothed 

enough 

To  suit  their  funeral  gaze  —  and  went  upstairs  ; 
And  there,  in  the  one  room  that  he  could  call 
His  own,  he  found  a  kind  of  meaningless 
Annoyance  in  the  mute  familiar  things 
That  filled  it ;  for  the  grate's  monotonous  gleam 
Was  not  the  gleam  that  he  had  known  before, 
The  books  were  not  the  books  that  used  to  be, 
The  place  was  not  the  place.     There  was  a  lack 
Of  something  ;  and  the  certitude  of  death 
Itself,  as  with  a  furtive  questioning, 
Hovered,  and  he  could  not  yet  understand. 
He  knew  that  she  was  gone  —  there  was  no  need 
Of  any  argued  proof  to  tell  him  that, 
For  they  had  buried  her  that  afternoon, 
Under  the  leaves  and  snow ;  and  still  there  was 
A  doubt,  a  pitiless  doubt,  a  plunging  doubt, 


iz8        THE    BOOK    OF   ANNANDALE 

That  struck  him,  and  upstartled  when  it  struck, 
The  vision,  the  old  thought  in  him.     There  was 
A  lack,  and  one  that  wrenched  him ;  but  it  was 
Not  that  —  not  that.     There  was  a  present  sense 
Of  something  indeterminably  near  — 
The  soul-clutch  of  a  prescient  emptiness 
That  would  not  be  foreboding.     And  if  not, 
What  then  ?  —  or  was  it  anything  at  all  ? 
Yes,  it  was  something  —  it  was  everything  — 
But  what  was  everything  ?  or  anything  ? 

Tired  of  time,  bewildered,  he  sat  down  ; 
But  in  his  chair  he  kept  on  wondering 
That  he  should  feel  so  desolately  strange 
And  yet  —  for  all  he  knew  that  he  had  lost 
More  of  the  world  than  most  men  ever  win  — 
So  curiously  calm.     And  he  was  left 
Unanswered  and  unsatisfied  :  there  came 
No  clearer  meaning  to  him  than  had  come 
Before ;  the  old  abstraction  was  the  best 
That  he  could  find,  the  farthest  he  could  go ; 
To  that  was  no  beginning  and  no  end  — 
No  end  that  he  could  reach.     So  he  must  learn 
To  live  the  surest  and  the  largest  life 
Attainable  in  him,  would  he  divine 
The  meaning  of  the  dream  and  of  the  words 
That  he  had  written,  without  knowing  why, 


THE   BOOK   OF  ANNANDALE        129 

On  sheets  that  he  had  bound  up  like  a  book 
And  covered  with  red  leather.     There  it  was  — 
There  in  his  desk,  the  record  he  had  made, 
The  spiritual  plaything  of  his  life  : 
There  were  the  words  no  eyes  had  ever  seen 
Save    his  j    there  were  the  words  that  were  not 

made 

For  glory  or  for  gold.     The  pretty  wife 
Whom  he  had  loved  and  lost  had  not  so  much 
As  heard  of  them.     They  were  not  made  for  her. 
His  love  had  been  so  much  the  life  of  her, 
And  hers  had  been  so  much  the  life  of  him, 
That  any  wayward  phrasing  on  his  part 
Would  have  had  no  moment.     Neither  had  lived 

enough 

To  know  the  book,  albeit  one  of  them 
Had  grown  enough  to  write  it.     There  it  was, 
However,  though  he  knew  not  why  it  was : 
There  was  the  book,  but  it  was  not  for  her, 
For  she  was  dead.     And  yet,  there  was  the  book. 

Thus  would  his  fancy  circle  out  and  out, 
And  out  and  in  again,  till  he  would  make 
As  if  with  a  large  freedom  to  crush  down 
Those  under  -  thoughts.  He  covered  with  his 

hands 
His  tired  eyes,  and  waited :  he  could  hear  — 


1 3o        THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE 

Or  partly  feel  and  hear,  mechanically  — 

The  sound  of  talk,  with  now  and  then  the  steps 

And  skirts  of  some  one  scudding  on  the  stairs, 

Forgetful  of  the  nerveless  funeral  feet 

That  she  had  brought  with  her;  and  more  than 

once 

There  came  to  him  a  call  as  of  a  voice  — 
A  voice  of  love  returning  —  but  not  hers. 
Whose  he  knew  not,  nor  dreamed ;  nor  did  he 

know, 

Nor  did  he  dream,  in  his  blurred  loneliness 
Of  thought,  what  all  the  rest  might  think  of  him. 

For  it  had  come  at  last,  and  she  was  gone 
With  all  the  vanished  women  of  old  time,  — 
And  she  was  never  coming  back  again. 
Yes,  they  had  buried  her  that  afternoon, 
Under  the  frozen  leaves  and  the  cold  earth, 
Under    the    leaves    and    snow.     The     flickering 

week, 

The  sharp  and  certain  day,  and  the  long  drowse 
Were  over,  and  the  man  was  left  alone. 
He  knew  the  loss  —  Therefore  it  puzzled  him 
That  he  should  sit  so  long  there  as  he  did, 
And  bring  the  whole  thing  back  —  the  love,  the 

trust, 
The  pallor,  the  poor  face,  and  the  faint  way 


THE    BOOK    OF   ANNANDALE        131 

She  last  had  looked  at  him  —  and  yet  not  weep, 
Or  even  choose  to  look  about  the  room 
To  see  how  sad  it  was  ;  and  once  or  twice 
He  winked  and  pinched  his  eyes  against  the  flame 
And  hoped  there  might  be  tears.     But  hope  was 

all, 

And  all  to  him  was  nothing :  he  was  lost. 
And  yet  he  was  not  lost  :  he  was  astray  — 
Out  of  his  life  and  in  another  life  ; 
And  in  the  stillness  of  this  other  life 
He  wondered   and    he  drowsed.     He   wondered 

when 

It  was,  and  wondered  if  it  ever  was 
On  earth  that  he  had  known  the  other  face  — 
The  searching  face,  the  eloquent,  strange  face  — 
That  with  a  sightless  beauty  looked  at  him 
And  with  a  speechless  promise  uttered  words 
That  were  not  the  world's  words,  or  any  kind 
That  he  had  known  before.     What  was  it,  then  ? 
What  was  it  held  him  —  fascinated  him  ? 
Why  should  he  not  be  human  ?     He  could  sigh, 
And  he  could  even  groan,  —  but  what  of  that  ? 
There  was  no  grief  left  in  him.     Was  he  glad  ? 

Yet  how  could  he  be  glad,  or  reconciled, 
Or  anything  but  wretched  and  undone  ? 
How  could  he  be  so  frigid  and  inert  — 


132        THE    BOOK    OF   ANNANDALE 

So  like  a  man  with  water  in  his  veins 
Where  blood  had  been  a  little  while  before  ? 
How  could  he  sit  shut  in  there  like  a  snail  ? 
What  ailed  him  ?     What  was  on  him  ?    Was  he 

glad  ? 

Over  and  over  again  the  question  came, 
Unanswered  and  unchanged,  —  and  there  he  was. 
But  what  in  heaven's  name  did  it  all  mean  ? 
If  he  had  lived  as  other  men  had  lived, 
If  home  had  ever  shown  itself  to  be 
The  counterfeit  that  others  had  called  home, 
Then  to  this  undivined  resource  of  his 
There   were    some    key ;    but    now  .   .  .  Philo 
sophy  ? 

Yes,  he  could  reason  in  a  kind  of  way 
That  he  was  glad  for  Miriam's  release  — 
Much  as  he  might  be  glad  to  see  his  friends 
Laid  out  around  him  with  their  grave-clothes  on, 
And  this  life  done  for  them ;  but  something  else 
There  was  that  foundered  reason,  overwhelmed 

it, 

And  with  a  chilled,  intuitive  rebuff 
Beat  back  the  self-cajoling  sophistries 
That  his  half-tutored  thought  would  half-project. 

What  was  it,  then  ?    Had  he  become  transformed 
And  hardened   through    long   watches  and   long 
grief 


THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE        133 

Into  a  loveless,  feelingless  dead  thing 
That  brooded  like  a  man,  breathed  like  a  man,  — 
Did  everything  but  ache  ?     And  was  a  day 
To  come  some  time  when  feeling  should  return 
Forever  to  drive  off  that  other  face  — 
The  lineless,  indistinguishable  face  — 
That  once  had  thrilled  itself  between  his  own 
And  hers  there  on  the  pillow,  —  and  again 
Between  him  and  the  coffin-lid  had  flashed 
Like  fate  before  it  closed,  —  and  at  the  last 
Had  come,  as  it  should  seem,  to  stay  with  him, 
Bidden  or  not  ?      He  were  a  stranger  then, 
Foredrowsed  awhile  by  some  deceiving  draught 
Of  poppied  anguish,  to  the  covert  grief 
And  the  stark  loneliness  that  waited  him, 
And  for  the  time  were  cursedly  endowed 
With  a  dull  trust  that  shammed  indifference 
To  knowing  there  would  be  no  touch  again 
Of  her  small  hand  on  his,  no  silencing 
Of  her  quick  lips  on  his,  no  feminine 
Completeness  and  love-fragrance  in  the  house, 
No  sound  of  some  one  singing  any  more, 
No  smoothing  of  slow  fingers  on  his  hair, 
No  shimmer  of  pink  slippers  on  brown  tiles. 

But  there  was  nothing,  nothing,  in  all  that : 
He  had  not  fooled  himself  so  much  as  that ; 


i34        THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE 

He  might  be  dreaming  or  he  might  be  sick, 
But  not  like  that.     There  was  no  place  for  fear, 
No  reason  for  remorse.     There  was  the  book 
That  he  had  made,  though.  ...  It  might  be  the 

book ; 

Perhaps  he  might  find  something  in  the  book ; 
But  no,  there  could  be  nothing  there  at  all  — 
He  knew  it  word  for  word ;  but  what  it  meant  - — 
He  was  not  sure  that  he  had  written  it 
For  what  it  meant ;  and  he  was  not  quite  sure 
That  he  had  written  it ;  —  more  likely  it 
Was  all  a  paper  ghost.   .   .   .   But  the  dead  wife 
Was  real  :  he  knew  that,  for  he  had  been 
To  see  them  bury  her ;  and  he  had  seen 
The  flowers  and  the  snow  and  the  stripped  limbs 
Of  trees ;  and  he  had  heard  the  preacher  pray ; 
And  he  was  back  again,  and  he  was  glad. 
Was  he  a  brute  ?     No,  he  was  not  a  brute : 
He  was  a  man  —  like  any  other  man  : 
He  had  loved  and  married  his  wife  Miriam, 
They  had  lived  a  little  while  in  paradise 
And  she  was  gone ;  and  that  was  all  of  it. 

But  no,  not  all  of  it  —  not  all  of  it  : 

There  was  the  book  again  ;  something  in  that 

Pursued  him,  overpowered  him,  put  out 

The  futile  strength  of  all  his  whys  and  wheres, 


THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE        135 

And  left  him  unintelligibly  numb  — 

Too  numb  to  care  for  anything  but  rest. 

It  must  have  been  a  curious  kind  of  book 

That  he  had  made  :  it  was  a  drowsy  book 

At  any  rate.     The  very  thought  of  it 

Was  like  the  taste  of  some  impossible  drink  — 

A  taste  that  had  no  taste,  but  for  all  that 

Had  mixed  with  it  a  strange  thought-cordial, 

So  potent  that  it  somehow  killed  in  him 

The  ultimate  need  of  doubting  any  more  — 

Of  asking  any  more.     Did  he  but  live 

The  life  that  he  must  live,  there  were  no  more 

To  seek.  —  The  rest  of  it  was  on  the  way. 

Still  there  was  nothing,  nothing,  in  all  this  — 
Nothing  that  he  cared  now  to  reconcile 
With  reason  or  with  sorrow.     All  he  knew 
For  certain  was  that  he  was  tired  out : 
His  flesh  was  heavy  and  his  blood  beat  small ; 
Something  supreme  had  been  wrenched  out  of  him 
As  if  to  make  vague  room  for  something  else. 
He  had  been  through  too  much.     Yes,  he  would 

stay 
There  where  he  was  and  rest.  —  And  there  he 

stayed ; 

The  daylight  became  twilight,  and  he  stayed  5 
The  flame  and  the  face  faded,  and  he  slept. 


136        THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE 

And  they  had  buried  her  that  afternoon, 
Under  the  tight-screwed  lid  of  a  long  box, 
Under  the  earth,  under  the  leaves  and  snow. 

II DAMARIS 

Look  where  she  would,  feed  conscience  how  she 

might, 

There  was  but  one  way  now  for  Damaris  — 
One  straight  way  that  was  hers,  hers  to  defend, 
At  hand,  imperious.     But  the  nearness  of  it, 
The  flesh-bewildering  simplicity, 
And  the  plain  strangeness  of  it,  thrilled  again 
That  wretched  little  quivering  single  string 
Which  yielded  not,  but  held  her  to  the  place 
Where  now  for  five  triumphant  years  had  slept 
The  flameless  dust  of  Argan.  —  He  was  gone, 
The  good  man  she  had  married  long  ago ; 
And  she  had  lived,  and  living  she  had  learned, 
And  surely  there  was  nothing  to  regret : 
Much  happiness  had  been  for  each  of  them, 
And  they  had  been  like  lovers  to  the  last : 
And  after  that,  and  long,  long  after  that, 
Her  tears  had  washed  out  more  of  widowed  grief 
Than  smiles  had  ever  told  of  other  joy.  — 
But  could  she,  looking  back,  find  anything 
That  should  return  to  her  in  the  new  time, 
And  with  relentless  magic  uncreate 


THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE        137 

This  temple  of  new  love  where  she  had  thrown 
Dead  sorrow  on  the  altar  of  new  life  ? 
Only  one  thing,  only  one  thread  was  left ; 
When  she  broke  that,  when  reason   snapped  it 

off, 

And  once  for  all,  baffled,  the  grave  let  go 
The  trivial  hideous  hold  it  had  on  her,  — 
Then  she  were  free,  free  to  be  what  she  would, 
Free  to  be  what  she  was.  —  And  yet  she  stayed, 
Leashed,  as  it  were,  and  with  a  cobweb  strand, 
Close  to  a  tombstone  —  maybe  to  starve  there. 

But  why  to  starve  ?     And  why  stay  there  at  all  ? 
Why  not  make  one  good  leap  and  then  be  done 
Forever  and  at  once  with  Argan's  ghost 
And  all  such  outworn  churchyard  servitude  ? 
For  it  was  Argan's  ghost  that  held  the  string, 
And  her  sick  fancy  that  held  Argan's  ghost  — 
Held  it  and  pitied  it.     She  laughed,  almost, 
There   for  the   moment ;    but   her   strained  eyes 

filled 

With  tears,  and  she  was  angry  for  those  tears  — 
Angry  at  first,  then  proud,  then  sorry  for  them. 
So  she  grew  calm  ;  and  after  a  vain  chase 
For  thoughts  more  vain,  she  questioned  of  her 
self 
What  measure  of  primeval  doubts  and  fears 


138        THE    BOOK    OF   ANNANDALE 

Were  still  to  be  gone  through  that  she  might  win 
Persuasion  of  her  strength  and  of  herself 
To  be  what  she  could  see  that  she  must  be, 
No    matter   where   the   ghost    was.  —  And    the 

more 

She  lived,  the  more  she  came  to  recognize 
That  something  out  of  her  thrilled  ignorance 
Was  luminously,  proudly  being  born, 
And  thereby  proving,  thought  by  forward  thought 
The  prowess  of  its  image  ;  and  she  learned 
At  length  to  look  right  on  to  the  long  days 
Before  her  without  fearing.     She  could  watch 
The  coming  course  of  them  as  if  they  were 
No  more  than  birds,  that  slowly,  silently, 
And  irretrievably  should  wing  themselves 
Uncounted  out  of  sight.     And  when  he  came 
Again  she  should  be  free  —  she  would  be  free. 
Else,  when  he  looked  at  her  she  must  look  down, 
Defeated,  and  malignly  dispossessed 
Of  what  was  hers  to  prove  and  in  the  proving 
Wisely  to  consecrate.     And  if  the  plague 
Of  that  perverse  defeat  should  come  to  be  — 
If  at  that  sickening  end  she  were  to  find 
Herself  to  be  the  same  poor  prisoner 
That  he  had  found  at  first  —  then  she  must  lose 
All  sight  and  sound  of  him,  she  must  abjure 
All  possible  thought  of  him  ;  for  he  would  go 


THE   BOOK    OF   ANNANDALE        139 

So  far  and  for  so  long  from  her  that  love  — 
Even  a  love  like  his,  exiled  enough, 
Might  for  another's  touch  be  born  again  — 
Born  to  be  lost  and  starved  for  and  not  found ; 
Or,  at  the  next,  the  second  wretchedest, 
It  might  go  mutely  flickering  down  and  out, 
And  on  some  incomplete  and  piteous  day, 
Some  perilous  day  to  come,  she  might  at  last 
Learn,  with  a  noxious  freedom,  what  it  is 
To  be  at  peace  with  ghosts.     Then  were  the  blow 
Thrice  deadlier  than  any  kind  of  death 
Could  ever  be  :  to  know  that  she  had  won 
The  truth  too  late  —  there  were  the  dregs  in 
deed 

Of  wisdom,  and  of  love  the  final  thrust 
Unmerciful ;  and  there  where  now  did  lie 
So  plain  before  her  the  straight  radiance 
Of  what  was  her  appointed  way  to  take, 
Were  only  the  bleak  ruts  of  an  old  road 
That  stretched  ahead  and  faded  and  lay  far 
Through  deserts  of  unconscionable  years. 

But  vampire   thoughts  like   these   confessed   the 

doubt 

That  love  denied ;  and  once,  if  never  again, 
They    should     be     turned    away.     They    might 

come  back  — 


I4o        THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE 

More     craftily,    perchance,    they    might    come 

back  — 

And  with  a  spirit-thirst  insatiable 
Finish  the  strength  of  her ;  but  now,  to-day 
She  would  have  none  of  them.     She  knew  that 

love 

Was  true,  that  he  was  true,  that  she  was  true ; 
And  should  a  death-bed  snare  that  she  had  made 
So  long  ago  be  stretched  inexorably 
Through  all  her  life,  only  to  be  unspun 
With   her  last  breathing  ?     And  were   bats  and 

threads, 

Accursedly  devised  with  watered  gules, 
To  be  Love's  heraldry  ?     What  were  it  worth 
To  live  and  to  find  out  that  life  were  life 
But  for  an  unrequited  incubus 
Of  outlawed  shame  that  would   not   be  thrown 

down 

Till  she  had  thrown  down  fear  and  overcome 
The  woman  that  was  yet  so  much  of  her 
That  she    might    yet   go   mad  ?     What  were  it 

worth 

To  live,  to  linger,  and  to  be  condemned 
In  her  submission  to  a  common  thought 
That  clogged  itself  and  made  of  its  first  faith 
Its  last  impediment  ?     What  augured  it, 
Now  in  this  quick  beginning  of  new  life, 


THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE        141 

To  clutch  the  sunlight  and  be  feeling  back, 
Back  with  a  scared  fantastic  fearfulness, 
To  touch,  not  knowing  why,  the  vexed-up  ghost 
Of  what  was  gone? 

Yes,  there  was  Argan's  face, 
Pallid  and  pinched  and  ruinously  marked 
With  big  pathetic  bones;  there  were  his  eyes, 
Quiet  and  large,  fixed  wistfully  on  hers ; 
And  there,  close-pressed  again  within  her  own, 
Quivered  his  cold  thin  fingers.     And,  ah  !  yes, 
There  were  the  words,  those  dying  words  again, 
And  hers  that  answered  when  she  promised  him. 
Promised  him  ?  .   .   .  yes.     And  had  she  known 

the  truth 

Of  what  she  felt  that  he  should  ask  her  that, 
And  had  she  known  the  love  that  was  to  be, 
God  knew  that  she  could  not  have  told  him  then. 
But  then  she  knew  it  not,  nor  thought  of  it ; 
There  was  no  need  of  it ;  nor  was  there  need 
Of  any  problematical  support 
Whereto  to  cling  while  she  convinced  herself 
That  love's  intuitive  utility, 
Inexorably  merciful,  had  proved 
That  what  was  human  was  unpermanent 
And  what  was  flesh  was  ashes.     She  had  told 
Him  then  that  she  would  love  no  other  man, 


142        THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE 

That  there  was  not  another  man  on  earth 
Whom  she  could  ever  love,  or  who  could  make 
So  much  as  a  love  thought  go  through  her  brain ; 
And  he  had  smiled.     And  just  before  he  died 
His  lips  had  made  as  if  to  say  something  — 
Something    that    passed    unwhispered    with    his 

breath, 

Out  of  her  reach,  out  of  all  quest  of  it. 
And  then,  could  she  have  known  enough  to  know 
The  meaning  of  her  grief,  the  folly  of  it, 
The  faithlessness  and  the  proud  anguish  of  it, 
There  might  be  now  no  threads  to  punish  her, 
No  vampire  thoughts  to  suck  the  coward  blood, 
The  life,  the  very  soul  of  her. 

Yes,  Yes, 
They  might  come  back.   .   .   .    But  why  should 

they  come  back  ? 

Why  was  it  she  had  suffered  ?     Why  had  she 
Struggled  and  grown  these  years  to  demonstrate 
That   close  without    those    hovering    clouds    of 

gloom 

And  through  them  here  and  there  forever  gleamed 
The  Light  itself,  the  life,  the  love,  the  glory, 
Which  was  of  its  own  radiance  good  proof 
That  all  the  rest  was  darkness  and  blind  sight  ? 
And    who    was     she  ?     The     woman     she     had 

known  — 


THE    BOOK    OF   ANNANDALE        143 

The  woman  she  had  petted  and  called  "  I  " 

The  woman  she  had  pitied,  and  at  last 

Commiserated  for  the  most  abject 

And  persecuted  of  all  womankind,  — 

Could  it  be  she  that  had  sought  out  the  way 

To  measure  and  thereby  to  quench  in  her 

The  woman's  fear  —  the  fear  of  her  not  fearing  ? 

A  nervous  little  laugh  that  lost  itself, 

Like  logic  in  a  dream,  fluttered  her  thoughts 

An  instant  there  that  ever  she  should  ask 

What  she  might  then  have  told  so  easily 

So  easily  that  Annandale  had  frowned, 
Had  he  been  given  wholly  to  be  told 
The  truth  of  what  had  never  been  before 
So  passionately,  so  inevitably 
Confessed. 

For  she  could  see  from  where  she  sat 
The  sheets  that  he  had  bound  up  like  a  book 
And  covered  with  red  leather  ;  and  her  eyes 
Could  see  between  the  pages  of  the  book, 
Though  her  eyes,  like  them,  were  closed.     And 

she  could  read 
As  well  as  if  she  had  them  in  her  hand, 

What  he  had  written  on  them  long  ago, 

Six  years  ago,  when  he  was  waiting  for  her. 
She  might  as  well  have  said  that  she  could  see 
The  man  himself,  as  once  he  would  have  looked 


i44        THE    BOOK    OF   ANNANDALE 

Had  she  been  there  to  watch  him  while  he  wrote 
Those    words,    and    all    for    her.   .    .   .  For  her 

whose  face 

Had  flashed  itself,  prophetic  and  unseen, 
But  not  unspirited,  between  the  life 
That  would  have  been  without  her  and  the  life 
That  he  had  gathered  up  like  frozen  roots 
Out  of  a  grave-clod  lying  at  his  feet, 
Unconsciously,  and  as  unconsciously 
Transplanted  and  revived.     He  did  not  know 
The  kind  of  life  that  he  had  found,  nor  did 
He  doubt,  not  knowing  it ;  but  well  he  knew 
That  it  was  life  —  new  life,  and  that  the  old 
Might  then  with  unimprisoned  wings  go  free, 
Onward  and  all  along  to  its  own  light, 
Through  the  appointed  shadow. 

While  she  gazed 

Upon  it  there  she  felt  within  herself 
The  growing  of  a  newer  consciousness  — 
The  pride  of  something  fairer  than  her  first 
Outclamoring  of  interdicted  thought 
Had  ever  quite  foretold  ;  and  all  at  once 
There  quivered  and  requivered  through  her  flesh, 
Like  music,  like  the  sound  of  an  old  song, 
Triumphant,  love-remembered  murmurings 
Of  what  for  passion's  innocence  had  been 
Too  mightily,  too  perilously  hers, 


THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE        145 

Ever  to  be  reclaimed  and  realized 
Until  to-day.     To-day  she  could  throw  off 
The  burden  that  had  held  her  down  so  long, 
And  she  could  stand  upright,  and  she  could  see 
The  way  to  take,  with  eyes  that  had  in  them 
No  gleam  but  of  the  spirit.     Day  or  night, 
No  matter  ;  she  could  see  what  was  to  see  — 
All  that  had  been  till  now  shut  out  from  her, 
The  service,  the  fulfillment,  and  the  truth, 
And  thus  the  cruel  wiseness  of  it  all. 

So  Damaris,  more  like  than  anything 
To  one  long  prisoned  in  a  twilight  cave 
With  hovering  bats  for  all  companionship, 
And  after  time  set  free  to  fight  the  sun, 
Laughed  out,  so  glad  she  was  to  recognize 
The  test  of  what  had  been,  through  all  her  folly, 
The  courage  of  her  conscience  ;  for  she  knew, 
Now  on  a  late-flushed  autumn  afternoon 
That  else  had  been  too  bodeful  of  dead  things 
To  be  endured  with  aught  but  the  same  old 
Inert,  self-contradicted  martyrdom 
Which  she  had  known  so  long,  that  she  could 

look 

Right  forward  through  the  years,  nor  any  more 
Shrink  with  a  cringing  prescience  to  behold 
The  glitter  of  dead  summer  on  the  grass, 


1 46        THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE 

Or  the  brown-glimmered  crimson  of  still  trees 
Across  the  intervale  where  flashed  along, 
Black-silvered,  the  cold  river.     She  had  found, 
As  if  by  some  transcendent  freakishness 
Of  reason,  the  glad  life  that  she  had  sought 
Where    naught    but   obvious   clouds   could   ever 

be- 
Clouds  to  put  out  the  sunlight  from  her  eyes, 
And  to  put  out  the  love-light  from  her  soul. 
But  they  were  gone  —  now  they  were  all  gone ; 
And  with  a  whimsied  pathos,  like  the  mist 
Of  grief  that  clings  to  new-found  happiness 
Hard  wrought,  she  might  have  pity  for  the  small 
Defeated  quest  of  them  that  brushed  her  sight 
Like    flying    lint  —  lint     that     had    once    been 

thread.  .  .  . 

Yes,  like  an  anodyne,  the  voice  of  him, 
There  were  the  words  that  he  had  made  for  her, 
For  her  alone.     The  more  she  thought  of  them 
The   more   she   lived    them,   and    the   more   she 

knew 
The  life-grip  and  the  pulse  of  warm  strength  in 

them. 

They  were  the  first  and  last  of  words  to  her, 
And  there  was  in  them  a  far  questioning 
That  had  for  long  been  variously  at  work, 


THE   BOOK   OF   ANNANDALE        147 

Divinely  and  elusively  at  work, 

With    her,  and   with    the   grave  that    had    been 

hers  ; 

They  were  eternal  words,  and  they  diffused 
A  flame  of  meaning  that  men's  lexicons 
Had  never  kindled  ;  they  were  choral  words 
That  harmonized  with  love's  enduring  chords 
Like  wisdom  with  release  ;  triumphant  words 
That  rang  like  elemental  orisons 
Through  ages  out  of  ages ;  words  that  fed 
Love's  hunger  in  the  spirit ;  words  that  smote ; 
Thrilled  words   that   echoed,  and   barbed   words 

that  clung ;  — 

And  every  one  of  them  was  like  a  friend 
Whose  obstinate  fidelity,  well  tried, 
Had  found  at  last  and  irresistibly 
The  way  to  her  close  conscience,  and  thereby 
Revealed  the  unsubstantial  Nemesis 
That  she  had  clutched  and  shuddered  at  so  long; 
And  every  one  of  them  was  like  a  real 
And  ringing  voice,  clear  toned  and  absolute, 
But  of  a  love-subdued  authority 
That  uttered  thrice  the  plain  significance 
Of  what  had  else  been  generously  vague 
And  indolently  true.     It  may  have  been 
The  triumph  and  the  magic  of  the  soul, 
Unspeakably  revealed,  that  finally 


148        THE    BOOK    OF   ANNANDALE 

Had  reconciled  the  grim  probationing 

Of  wisdom  with  unalterable  faith, 

But  she  could  feel  —  not  knowing  what  it  was, 

For  the  sheer  freedom  of  it  —  a  new  joy 

That  humanized  the  latent  wizardry 

Of  his  prophetic  voice  and  put  for  it 

The  man  within  the  music. 

So  it  came 

To  pass,  like  many  a  long-compelled  emprise 
That  with  its  first  accomplishment  almost 
Annihilates  its  own  severity, 
That  she  could  find,  whenever  she  might  look, 
The  certified  achievement  of  a  love 
That  had  endured,  self-guarded  and  supreme, 
To  the  glad  end  of  all  that  wavering ; 
And  she  could  see  that  now  the  flickering  world 
Of  autumn  was  awake  with  sudden  bloom, 
New-born,  perforce,  of  a  slow  bourgeoning. 
And  she   had    found  what  more   than   half  had 

been 

The  grave-deluded,  flesh-bewildered  fear 
Which  men  and  women  struggle  to  call  faith, 
To  be  the  paid  progression  to  an  end 
Whereat  she  knew  the  foresight  and  the  strength 
To  glorify  the  gift  of  what  was  hers, 
To  vindicate  the  truth  of  what  she  was. 


THE   BOOK   OF   ANN  AND  ALE        149 

And  had  it  come  to  her  so  suddenly  ? 

There  was  a  pity  and  a  weariness 

In  asking  that,  and  a  great  needlessness  ; 

For    now    there    were    no    wretched    quivering 

strings 

That  held  her  to  the  churchyard  any  more : 
There  were  no  thoughts  that  flapped  themselves 

like  bats 

Around  her  any  more.     The  shield  of  love 
Was  clean,  and  she  had  paid  enough  to  learn 
How  it  had  always  been  so.     And  the  truth, 
Like  silence  after  some  far  victory, 
Had  come  to  her,  and  she  had  found  it  out 
As  if  it  were  a  vision,  a  thing  born 
So  suddenly  !  — just  as  a  flower  is  born, 
Or  as  a  world  is  born  —  so  suddenly. 


SAINTE-NITOUCHE 

THOUGH  not  for  common  praise  of  him, 

Nor  yet  for  pride  or  charity, 
Still  would  I  make  to  Vanderberg 

One  tribute  for  his  memory : 

One  honest  warrant  of  a  friend 

Who  found  with  him  that  flesh  was  grass 
Who  neither  blamed  him  in  defect 

Nor  marveled  how  it  came  to  pass ; 

Or  why  it  ever  was  that  he  — 

That  Vanderberg,  of  all  good  men, 

Should  lose  himself  to  find  himself, 
Straightway  to  lose  himself  again. 

For  we  had  buried  Sainte-Nitouche, 
And  he  had  said  to  me  that  night : 

"  Yes,  we  have  laid  her  in  the  earth, 

But  what  of  that  ?  "     And  he  was  right. 

And  he  had  said  :  u  We  have  a  wife, 
We  have  a  child,  we  have  a  church; 


S  AINTE-NITOUCHE  1 5 1 

*T  would  be  a  scurrilous  way  out 

If  we  should  leave  them  in  the  lurch. 

"  That 's  why  I  have  you  here  with  me 
To-night  :  you  know  a  talk  may  take 

The  place  of  bromide,  cyanide, 
Et  cetera.     For  heaven's  sake, 

"  Why  do  you  look  at  me  like  that  ? 

What  have  I  done  to  freeze  you  so  ? 
Dear  man,  you  see  where  friendship  means 

A  few  things  yet  that  you  don't  know ; 

"  And  you  see  partly  why  it  is 

That  I  am  glad  for  what  is  gone : 
For  Sainte-Nitouche  and  for  the  world 

In  me  that  followed.     What  lives  on 

"  Well,  here  you  have  it :  here  at  home  — 

For  even  home  will  yet  return. 
You  know  the  truth  is  on  my  side, 

And  that  will  make  the  embers  burn. 

"  I  see  them  brighten  while  I  speak, 
I  see  them  flash,  —  and  they  are  mine ! 

You  do  not  know  them,  but  I  do : 
I  know  the  way  they  used  to  shine. 


1 52  SAINTE-NITOUCHE 

"  And  I  know  more  than  I  have  told 

Of  other  life  that  is  to  be  : 
I  shall  have  earned  it  when  it  comes, 

And  when  it  comes  I  shall  be  free. 

u  Not  as  I  was  before  she  came 

But  farther  on  for  having  been 
The  servitor,  the  slave  of  her  — 

The  fool,  you  think.     But  there 's  your  sin 

<l  Forgive  me  !  —  and  your  ignorance  : 
Could  you  but  have  the  vision  here 

That  I  have,  you  would  understand 
As  I  do  that  all  ways  are  clear 

"  For  those  who  dare  to  follow  them 
With  earnest  eyes  and  honest  feet. 

But  Sainte-Nitouche  has  made  the  way 
For  me,  and  I  shall  find  it  sweet. 

"  Sweet  with  a  bitter  sting  left  ?  —  Yes, 
Bitter  enough,  God  knows,  at  first ; 

But  there  are  more  steep  ways  than  one 
To  make  the  best  look  like  the  worst ; 

"  And  here  is  mine  —  the  dark  and  hard, 
For  me  to  follow,  trust,  and  hold : 


SAINTE-NITOUCHE  1 53 

And  worship,  so  that  I  may  leave 
No  broken  story  to  be  told. 

"  Therefore  I  welcome  what  may  come, 
Glad  for  the  days,  the  nights,  the  years."-— 

An  upward  flash  of  ember-flame 
Revealed  the  gladness  in  his  tears. 

"  You  see  them,  but  you  know,"  said  he, 

"  Too  much  to  be  incredulous  : 
You  know  the  day  that  makes  us  wise, 

The  moment  that  makes  fools  of  us. 

u  So  I  shall  follow  from  now  on 

The  road  that  she  has  found  for  me  : 

The  dark  and  starry  way  that  leads 
Right  upward,  and  eternally. 

"  Stumble  at  first  ?     I  may  do  that ; 

And  I  may  grope,  and  hate  the  night ; 
But  there  's  a  guidance  for  the  man 

Who  stumbles  upward  for  the  light, 

u  And  I  shall  have  it  all  from  her, 
The  foam-born  child  of  innocence. 

I  feel  you  smiling  while  I  speak, 
But  that 's  of  little  consequence ; 


1 54  SAINTE-NITOUCHE 

"  For  when  we  learn  that  we  may  find 
The  truth  where  others  miss  the  mark, 

What  is  it  worth  for  us  to  know 

That  friends  are  smiling  in  the  dark  ? 

"  Could  we  but  share  the  lonely  pride 
Of  knowing,  all  would  then  be  well ; 

But  knowledge  often  writes  itself 
In  flaming  words  we  cannot  spell. 

"  And  I,  who  have  my  work  to  do, 
Look  forward ;  and  I  dare  to  see, 

Far  stretching  and  all  mountainous, 

God's  pathway  through  the  gloom  for  me.' 

I  found  so  little  to  say  then 

That  I  said  nothing.  —  "  Say  good-night," 
Said  Vanderberg ;  "  and  when  we  meet 

To-morrow,  tell  me  I  was  right. 

u  Forget  the  dozen  other  things 

That  you  have  not  the  faith  to  say; 

For  now  I  know  as  well  as  you 
That  you  are  glad  to  go  away." 

I  could  have  blessed  the  man  for  that, 
And  he  could  read  me  with  a  smile : 


SAINTE-NITOUCHE  155 

<c  You  doubt,"  said  he,  "  but  if  we  live 
You  '11  know  me  in  a  little  while." 

He  lived  ;  and  all  as  he  foretold, 

I  knew  him  —  better  than  he  thought : 

My  fancy  did  not  wholly  dig 

The  pit  where  I  believed  him  caught. 

But  yet  he  lived  and  laughed,  and  preached, 
And  worked  —  as  only  players  can  : 

He  scoured  the  shrine  that  once  was  home 
And  kept  himself  a  clergyman. 

The  clockwork  of  his  cold  routine 

Put  friends  far  off  that  once  were  near ; 

The  five  staccatos  in  his  laugh 
Were  too  defensive  and  too  clear ; 

The  glacial  sermons  that  he  preached 

Were  longer  than  they  should  have  been ; 

And,  like  the  man  who  fashioned  them, 
The  best  were  too  divinely  thin. 

But  still  he  lived,  and  moved,  and  had 

The  sort  of  being  that  was  his, 
Till  on  a  day  the  shrine  of  home 

For  him  was  in  the  Mysteries  :  — 


1 56  SAINTE-NITOUCHE 

"  My  friend,  there  's  one  thing  yet,"  said  he, 
"  And  one  that  I  have  never  shared 

With  any  man  that  I  have  met ; 

But  you  —  you  know  me."     And  he  stared 

For  a  slow  moment  at  me  then 

With  conscious  eyes  that  had  the  gleam, 

The  shine,  before  the  stroke :  —  "  You  know 
The  ways  of  us,  the  way  we  dream : 

u  You  know  the  glory  we  have  won, 
You  know  the  glamour  we  have  lost ; 

You  see  me  now,  you  look  at  me, — 
And  yes,  you  pity  me,  almost ; 

"  But  never  mind  the  pity  —  no, 

Confess  the  faith  you  can't  conceal ; 

And  if  you  frown,  be  not  like  one 
Of  those  who  frown  before  they  feel. 

"  For  there  is  truth,  and  half  truth,  —  yes, 
And  there  's  a  quarter  truth,  no  doubt ; 

But  mine  was  more  than  half.  .  .  .  You  smile  ? 
You  understand  ?     You  bear  me  out  ? 

"  You  always  knew  that  I  was  right  — 
You  are  my  friend  —  and  I  have  tried 


SAINTE-NITOUCHE  1 57 

Your   faith  —  your   love."  —  The   gleam   grew 

small, 
The  stroke  was  easy,  and  he  died. 

I  saw  the  dim  look  change  itself 

To  one  that  never  will  be  dim ; 
I  saw  the  dead  flesh  to  the  grave, 

But  that  was  not  the  last  of  him. 

For  what  was  his  to  live  lives  yet : 

Truth,  quarter  truth,  death  cannot  reach ; 

Nor  is  it  always  what  we  know 
That  we  are  fittest  here  to  teach. 

The  fight  goes  on  when  fields  are  still, 
The  triumph  clings  when  arms  are  down ; 

The  jewels  of  all  coronets 

Are  pebbles  of  the  unseen  crown ; 

The  specious  weight  of  loud  reproof 
Sinks  where  a  still  conviction  floats ; 

And  on  God's  ocean  after  storm 

Time's  wreckage  is  half  pilot-boats ; 

And  what  wet  faces  wash  to  sight 

Thereafter  feed  the  common  moan ;  —— 

But  Vanderberg  no  pilot  had, 

Nor  could  have  :  he  was  all  alone. 


1 5  8  SAINTE-NITOUCHE 

Unchallenged  by  the  larger  light 
The  starry  quest  was  his  to  make ; 

And  ot  all  ways  that  are  for  men, 
The  starry  way  was  his  to  take. 

We  grant  him  idle  names  enough 
To-day,  but  even  while  we  frown 

The  fight  goes  on,  the  triumph  clings, 
And  there  is  yet  the  unseen  crown. 

But  was  it  his  ?     Did  Vanderberg 
Find  half  truth  to  be  passion's  thrall, 

Or  as  we  met  him  day  by  day, 
Was  love  triumphant,  after  all  ? 

I  do  not  know  so  much  as  that ; 

I  only  know  that  he  died  right : 
Saint  Anthony  nor  Sainte-Nitouche 

Had  ever  smiled  as  he  did  —  quite. 


AS  A  WORLD  WOULD  HAVE  IT 

ALCESTIS 

SHALL  I  never  make  him  look  at  me  again  ? 
I  look  at  him,  I  look  my  life  at  him, 
I  tell  him  all  I  know  the  way  to  tell, 
But  there  he  stays  the  same. 

Shall  I  never  make  him  speak  one  word  to  me  ? 
Shall  I  never  make  him  say  enough  to  show 
My  heart  if  he  be  glad  ?     Be  glad  ?   .  .  .  ah  ! 

God, 
Why  did  they  bring  me  back  ? 

I  wonder,  if  I  go  to  him  again, 
If  I  take  him  by  those  two  cold  hands  again, 
Shall  I  get  one  look  of  him  at  last,  or  feel 
One  sign  —  or  anything  ? 

Or  will  he  still  sit  there  in  the  same  way, 
Without  an  answer  for  me  from  his  lips, 
Or  from  his  eyes,  —  or  even  with  a  touch 
Of  his  hand  on  my  hand  ?  .  .  . 


160     AS   A   WORLD   WOULD   HAVE   IT 

"  Will  you  look  down  this  once  —  look  down  at 

me  ? 

Speak  once  —  and  if  you  never  speak  again, 
Tell  me  enough  —  tell  me  enough  to  make 
Me  know  that  you  are  glad  ! 

"  You  are  my  King,  and  once  my  King  would 

speak : 

You  were  Admetus  once,  you  loved  me  once : 
Life  was  a  dream  of  heaven  for  us  once  — 
And  has  the  dream  gone  by  ? 

"  Do  I  cling  to  shadows  when  I  call  you  Life  ? 
Do  you  love  me  still,  or  are  the  shadows  all  ? 
Or  is  it  I  that  love  you  in  the  grave, 
And  you  that  mourn  for  me  ? 

"  If  it  be  that,  then  do  not  mourn  for  me ; 
Be  glad  that  I  have  loved  you,  and  be  King. 
But  if  it  be  not  that  —  if  it  be  true  .  .  . 
Tell  me  if  it  be  true  !  " 

Then  with  a  choking  answer  the  King  spoke  5 
But  never  touched  his  hand  on  hers,  or  fixed 
His  eyes  on  hers,  or  on  the  face  of  her : 
"  Yes,  it  is  true,"  he  said. 


AS   A  WORLD   WOULD   HAVE   IT     161 

"  You  are  ajive,  and  you  are  with  me  now  5 
And  you  are  reaching  up  to  me  that  I  — 
That  I  may  take  you  —  I  that  am  a  King  — 
I  that  was  once  a  man." 

So  then  she  knew.    She  might  have  known  before ; 
Truly,  she  thought,  she  must  have  known  it  long 
Before :  she  must  have  known  it  when  she  came 
From  that  great  sleep  of  hers. 

She  knew  the  truth,  but  not  yet  all  of  it : 
He  loved  her,  but  he  would  not  let  his  eyes 
Prove  that  he  loved  her ;  and  he  would  not  hold 
His  wife  there  in  his  arms. 

So,  like  a  slave,  she  waited  at  his  knees, 
And  waited.     She  was  not  unhappy  now. 
She  quivered,  but  she  knew  that  he  would  speak 
Again  —  and  he  did  speak. 

And  while  she  felt  the  tremor  of  his  words, 
He  told  her  all  there  was  for  him  to  tell ; 
And  then  he  turned  his  face  to  meet  her  face, 
That  she  might  look  at  him. 

She  looked  ;  and  all  her  trust  was  in  that  look, 
And  all  her  faith  was  in  it,  and  her  love ; 


1 62     AS   A   WORLD   WOULD   HAVE  IT 

And  when  his  answer  to  that  look  came  back, 
It  flashed  back  through  his  tears. 

So  then  she  put  her  arms  around  his  neck, 
And  kissed  him  on  his  forehead  and  his  lips ; 
And  there  she  clung,  fast  in  his  arms  again, 
Triumphant,  with  closed  eyes. 

At  last,  half  whispering,  she  spoke  once  more  : 
"  Why  was  it  that  you  suffered  for  so  long  ? 
Why  could  you  not  believe  me  —  trust  in  me  ? 
Was  I  so  strange  as  that  ? 

"  We  suffer  when  we  do  not  understand ; 

And    you    have    suffered  —  you   that    love   me 

now  — 

Because  you  are  a  man.  .  .  .  There  is  one  thing 
No  man  can  understand. 

"  I  would  have  given  everything  ?  —  gone  down 

To  Tartarus  —  to  silence  ?     Was  it  that  ? 

I    would    have    died  ?     I    would    have    let    you 

live?  — 
And  was  it  very  strange  ? " 


(THE  CORRIDORl 

IT  may  have  been  the  pride  in  me  for  aught 
I  know,  or  just  a  patronizing  whim  ; 
But  call  it  freak  or  fancy,  or  what  not, 
I  cannot  hide  that  hungry  face  of  him. 

I  keep  a  scant  half-dozen  words  he  said, 
And  every  now  and  then  I  lose  his  name; 
He  may  be  living  or  he  may  be  dead, 
But  I  must  have  him  with  me  all  the  same. 

I  knew  it,  and  I  knew  it  all  along,  — 
And  felt  it  once  or  twice,  or  thought  I  did ; 
But  only  as  a  glad  man  feels  a  song 
That  sounds  around  a  stranger's  coffin  lid. 

I  knew  it,  and  he  knew  it,  I  believe, 
But  silence  held  us  alien  to  the  end  ; 
And  I  have  now  no  magic  to  retrieve 
That  year,  to  stop  that  hunger  for  a  friend. 


CORTEGE 

FOUR  o'clock  this  afternoon, 
Fifteen  hundred  miles  away : 
So  it  goes,  the  crazy  tune, 
So  it  pounds  and  hums  all  day. 

Four  o'clock  this  afternoon, 
Earth  will  hide  them  far  away  : 
Best  they  go  to  go  so  soon, 
Best  for  them  the  grave  to-day. 

Had  she  gone  but  half  so  soon, 
Half  the  world  had  passed  away. 
Four  o'clock  this  afternoon, 
Best  for  them  they  go  to-day. 

Four  o'clock  this  afternoon 
Love  will  hide  them  deep,  they  say ; 
Love  that  made  the  grave  so  soon, 
Fifteen  hundred  miles  away. 

Four  o'clock  this  afternoon  — 
Ah,  but  they  go  slow  to-day : 


CORTEGE  165 

Slow  to  suit  my  crazy  tune, 
Past  the  need  of  all  we  say. 

Best  it  came  to  come  so  soon, 
Best  for  them  they  go  to-day : 
Four  o'clock  this  afternoon, 
Fifteen  hundred  miles  away. 


THE  WIFE  OF  PALISSY 

YES,  you  have  it ;  I  can  see. 
Beautiful  ?  .  .  .  Dear,  look  at  me ! 
Look  and  let  my  shame  confess 
Triumph  after  weariness. 
Beautiful  ?     Ah,  yes. 

Lift  it  where  the  beams  are  bright ; 
Hold  it  where  the  western  light, 
Shining  in  above  my  bed, 
Throws  a  glory  on  your  head, 
Now  it  is  all  said. 

All  there  was  for  me  to  say 
From  the  first  until  to-day. 
Long  denied  and  long  deferred, 
Now  I  say  it  in  one  word  — 
Now ;  and  you  have  heard. 

Life  would  have  its  way  with  us, 
And  I  've  called  it  glorious : 
For  I  know  the  glory  now 


THE   WIFE    OF    PALISSY  167 

And  I  read  it  on  your  brow. 
You  have  shown  me  how. 


I  can  feel  your  cheeks  all  wet, 
But  your  eyes  will  not  forget  : 
In  the  frown  you  cannot  hide 
I  can  read  where  faith  and  pride 
Are  not  satisfied. 

But  the  word  was,  two  should  live : 
Two  should  suffer  —  and  forgive  : 
By  the  steep  and  weary  way, 
For  the  glory  of  the  clay, 
Two  should  have  their  day. 

We  have  toiled  and  we  have  wept 
For  the  gift  the  gods  have  kept : 
Clashing  and  unreconciled 
When  we  might  as  well  have  smiled, 
We  have  played  the  child. 

But  the  clashing  is  all  past, 
And  the  gift  is  yours  at  last. 
Lift  it  —  hold  it  high  again  !   .  .  . 
Did  I  doubt  you  now  and  then  ? 
Well,  we  are  not  men. 


1 68  THE    WIFE    OF   PALISSY 

Never  mind  ;  we  know  'the  way,  — 
And  I  do  not  need  to  stay. 
Let  us  have  it  well  confessed : 
You  to  triumph,  I  to  rest. 
That  will  be  the  best. 


TWILIGHT  SONG 

THROUGH  the  shine,  through  the  rain 
We  have  shared  the  day's  load; 
To  the  old  march  again 
We  have  tramped  the  long  road ; 
We  have  laughed,  we  have  cried, 
And  we  've  tossed  the  King's  crown  ; 
We  have  fought,  we  have  died, 
And  we  've  trod  the  day  down. 
So  it 's  lift  the  old  song 
Ere  the  night  flies  again, 
Where  the  road  leads  along 
Through  the  shine,  through  the  rain. 

Long  ago,  far  away, 
Came  a  sign  from  the  skies  ; 
And  we  feared  then  to  pray 
For  the  new  sun  to  rise  : 
With  the  King  there  at  hand, 
Not  a  child  stepped  or  stirred  — 
Where  the  light  filled  the  land 


i;o  TWILIGHT   SONG 

And  the  light  brought  the  word ; 
For  we  knew  then  the  gleam 
Though  we  feared  then  the  day, 
And  the  dawn  smote  the  dream 
Long  ago,  far  away. 

But  the  road  leads  us  all, 
For  the  King  now  is  dead  ; 
And  we  know,  stand  or  fall, 
We  have  shared  the  day's  bread. 
We  can  laugh  down  the  dream, 
For  the  dream  breaks  and  flies ; 
And  we  trust  now  the  gleam, 
For  the  gleam  never  dies ;  — 
So  it 's  off  now  the  load, 
For  we  know  the  night's  call, 
And  we  know  now  the  road 
And  the  road  leads  us  all. 

Through  the  shine,  through  the  rain, 
We  have  wrought  the  day's  quest ; 
To  the  old  march  again 
We  have  earned  the  day's  rest ; 
We  have  laughed,  we  have  cried, 
And  we  've  heard  the  King's  groans  ; 
We  have  fought,  we  have  died, 
And  we  've  burned  the  King's  bones, 


TWILIGHT   SONG  171 

And  we  lift  the  old  song 
Ere  the  night  flies  again, 
Where  the  road  leads  along 
Through  the  shine,  through  the  rain. 


fctoetfibe 

Electrotyped  and printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  C* 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.  A. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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